Team RPNT
by OCDIncarnate
Summary: A vigilante promised redemption, a cold intellectual with a promising career, a kind-hearted huntress in training who sees the good in people, and a street urchin hailing from mistral. This is the story of team RPNT.
1. Intro: Rachel Cross

The girl was kneeling on a rooftop, she was small and compact in build, armed with a sniper rifle held right-handedly. Her outfit consisted of a green cloak and hood, with a grey t-shirt, bulletproof vest, and jeans underneath. Her hair was mauve and tied into a braid over her right shoulder, draped over her flat chest. Approximately 100 feet away was a large group of civilians flocking one man, the man was wearing a black suit and sleek looking sunglasses. His Name was Max Brall, an atlesian fashion designer who was well known for his controversial opinion on faunus' place in society. As she aimed the rifle at him she began to inhale before holding her breath. She aimed the crosshair right at his temple. She pulled the trigger. the bullet fired. She felt a sharp pain in her left hand and heard screams. She grinned, that grin quickly fell when she saw that Brall was indeed not dead, and rather being escorted to his limousine by three security guards while the other two watched the rooftops. "The hell?" she thought as she lowered her rifle, feeling another jab of pain in her left hand she looked down to see her rifle had EXPLODED. A misfire had torn open the bottom of her rifle and her hand had been grazed

"Are you kidding me?! How the f…"

She dropped down as a bullet flew over her head. "What do i do?" she thought to herself, she had never been good at making decisions while under pressure, so of course she made the rash decision: kill Max Brall. She vaulted over the ledge of her roof landing on the next one, a sharp pain as her aura deflected a bullet

"Well, looks like they can aim"

She muttered in a deflated tone, she ran to the next rooftop, seeing Max and the three guards she jumped down on top of the first one, pinning him to the ground she quickly struck him in the back of the head with her rifle before rising to see the other two guards aiming their pistols at her. She pressed the second trigger on her rifle, causing the handle to come off in the form of a pistol. The guards put two and two together and fired their weapons at her. She spun the rifle part of her weapon like a staff blocking a few bullets while her aura handled the rest. She swung the staff part of her rifle horizontally, the first guard stepped back, avoiding the attack, but the second guard crumpled as the butt of the rifle hit him in the temple. The first guard aimed his pistol at her only to see her dash past him, after Brall, the guard gave chase, but was not nearly as fast as the girl. As she neared Brall she tackled him to the ground, pinning him down she said

"Max Brall, fashion designer, millionaire, racist pig."

"Please! Take my money!"

Brall shouted as he struggled. The girl heard the sound of the guard approaching her and turned to aim her pistol at him, all the while keeping a foot on the small of Max's back. The guard stopped as he saw the gun levelled at his face

"Go, said the girl, i won't hurt you if i don't have to"

The guard looked down at his employer

"W-what about mister Brall?"

"You don't share his feelings on faunus, do you?"

She said, steeling her glare

"No"

The guard meagerly shook his head

"Then i see no reason in killing you, go be with your family"

As the guard turned and ran she wheeled to Brall who was wheezing from trying to escape, but still no less pinned, she rolled him onto his back.

"Mister Brall, I'm assuming that you know what your opinions on faunus have done to vale? I'm assuming you know that i have been forced to watch as my brothers and sisters transition from protests to murders because of people like you hindering the progress of peace."

"I'm sorry! Just pl..."

He sputtered, but before he could say any more a gunshot was heard.


	2. Intro: Pirin D'or

A boy stood in the middle of a simulated battlefield, metal trees, sod layering the ground, rocks placed to look natural. The boy wore a dark grey combat mesh with a yellow scarf around his neck and a pair of dark grey pants with yellow greaves, on his right arm was a yellow and dark grey gauntlet reaching up to his elbow with glowing blue circles on it. His left arm was a prosthetic, also fitting the yellow and dark grey theme. He had a miniature monitor projected over his right eye and a pair of police batons, in his left hand was a carbine. He had short brown hair, blue eyes, and a lanky build. He looked around as the bushes rustled, he aimed his carbine at one bush and watched cautiously. Suddenly an atlesian knights ran out from the bushes behind him, he turned and fired a few bursts of lightning dust into it. As more atlesian knights ran at him from the treeline he continued dispatching them in short controlled bursts until his carbine beeped and a holographic projection appeared saying "new battery required". He quickly put the carbine on his back where a magnet held it in place as he grabbed the batons. A knights swung a punch at him which he blocked before jabbing the droid in it's stomach, causing a burst of electricity from the baton to disable it,he turned towards the forest and saw several more atlesian knights holding rifles

"Fuck!"

He shouted as he rolled behind a tree, several bullets striking his aura. Putting the batons back into place the boy reloaded his carbine and began to alternate between hiding behind cover and shooting the knights, reloading when necessary. Once the final knight had been destroyed he began walking through the forest until he was on top of a hill where he could see a large chunk of the forest, several knights were climbing up the mound of rocks, which he shot just like earlier

"This doesn't even feel like a challenge"

He muttered to himself in a light french accent. Suddenly the platform he was standing on began to tremble, he looked down and saw grey metal underneath the pile of rocks, of course, how could he be so stupid, he tried to jump off, but stumbled and fell. He looked up at the atlesian paladin MK I above him

"Oh god, they really brought the big guns, didn't they"

He muttered as the paladin swung its fist down at him. he ran away from the strike and a shockwave sent him stumbling to his knees and his carbine skidding away,

"Fucking christ"

He ran after the carbine as the paladin launched a barrage of twelve missiles. He turned around to see the missiles flying,

"Oh, they want to see what this baby can do"

He chuckled as he raised his right arm and the gauntlet fired several bolts of lightning disintegrating the missiles in midair.

"Ha! How do you like that!"

He gloated as he picked up his carbine. Several bolts of lightning shot from the carbine striking the paladin all over, however doing little damage. The paladin reacted with a laser pointed at his feet, he rolled out of the way of the blast and reloaded and fired another spray into the paladin, eliciting little to no effect once again. The boy groaned and switched to his batons as the paladin charged. And sidestepped out of the way of a punch, before jumping on the paladin's back and repeatedly striking the paladin in the back. The paladin began trying to shake him off as he held on, and thrusted a baton straight into the paladin's fuse box causing the paladin to fall over, immobile. Suddenly the light changed as the sky above turned to grey

"Well done, Pirin"

Said a voice over a loudspeaker. A door opened to the outside of the arena and several scientists walked in

"This footage will be perfect for our stockholders, anything you would like to tell us?"

"Yeah, the batons are too heavy in the back, see if you can scale down the batteries a bit." "Noted, thank you"

Said the scientist as Pirin began to walk out through the door

"thank you for your assistance, Pirin"

"You're welcome, Conrad, tell me when you need more weapons tested"


	3. Intro: Nova Algos

A collection of villagers stood around a group of 5 huntsmen and huntresses in training, among them was the one girl in the group, she appeared demure in nature, wearing a pink flowing dress with a brown bandolier holding several dust crystals, where the bandolier ended at her waist was a wooden box. Between the other 4 huntsmen in training, one used a bow, two used double handed swords, and the last two used swords and shields

"The forests are swarming with grimm!"

"Can you stop them?"

"A beowulf killed my daughter!"

The villagers were begging the huntsmen and huntresses in training as they couldn't afford a proper huntsman team. The five students had of course agreed to work at a reduced cost. So they had prepared to clear the forest around the village

"Alright! Nova, Robyn, and Mark will go north into the forest, me and Kyle will cover the field" Said Luke, the self-proclaimed leader of their student group, not that anyone really minded, they were mostly bad at making decisions. So Nova was working with Robyn, the archer, and Mark, the two-handed swordsman, Robyn was a good friend, someone who she trusted not to hit on her, Mark was fine too, not that she talked to him very much. So they headed into the forest, as they walked Robyn raised his hand and said

"Motion two-o-clock"

So they turned roughly sixty degrees to their right and Mark began to approach the bushes, only for a beowulf to jump out at him, and immediately be shot full of arrows

"Oh god, I just had a heart attack."

Joked Mark

"I swear, I don't know what I would do without the warning that your motion sensor semblance gives me"

"You're welcome"

said Robyn, grinning. A few minutes later they encountered a large pack of ursai charging at them, mark charged at the first ursa cutting it down with an overhead strike,however as he tried to lift his sword another ursa pounced on him. He closed his eyes wincing, only to hear the sound of burning and growling. As he looked up at the ursa's claw he noticed an aqua sphere around himself

"Thanks, Nova"

He said as he cut off the ursa's claw and backpedalled as a wall of fire burst up in front of him, causing the ursa to screech in pain as it burned to a black mist

"Arclight!"

Called Robyn as he fired a light arrow, creating a bright light, stunning the ursai. While they were distracted Nova charged and fired a wave of concentrated aura sending the ursai flying, only for Mark to pounce on one, decapitating it. Robyn fired an arrow into the second ursa, and Nova fired a spike of ice dust, finishing the final ursa

"Good job, just let me take a break"

Said Nova as she opened her wooden box and began loading dust crystals from the box into her bandolier

"I really need to find an auto loading mechanism sometime"

She muttered

"Maybe work on my aura control while i'm at it"

Suddenly they heard the sound of rocks screeching out in the forest, and the cry of a gheist, a few sideways glances to each other and they knew the plan: "Kill it".

As they ran into the clearing they saw the gheist turn to face them, a massive torso and legs made out of rocks, with a collection of animated vines for a left arm, and a metal plate sharpened into a blade on its right arm. Around its mask was a collection of floating rocks resembling a frill, as the gheist screeched at them, the "frill" seemed to float farther from the mask, increasing the resemblance to a lizard's frill. Robyn began firing arrows at the gheist's mask, all of which were blocked by the frill of rocks, meanwhile Mark ran around to strike it from behind. The gheist whipped at Robyn with its left arm, all the attacks of which were blocked by Nova's semblance, Nova retaliated with a bolt of fire dust, incinerating several of the vines. The gheist screeched again and charged at them, preparing to deliver a horizontal slash with its right arm, this attack was quickly thwarted when Mark struck one of the gheists legs, shattering it. The gheist fell, and began looking around for a new leg to use. Robyn fired an arrow at the gheist which it blocked with its right arm, and then the arrow began to glow black, the infused gravity dust pulling the gheist's frill out of place, just long enough for an ice bolt from Nova to destroy the mask.

As they walked away from the pile of rocks and metal they laughed about how little they would be payed for their work

"When we become huntsmen, *huff* we are not going to be doing those kinds of pity missions. Agreed?"

Said Nova

"Agreed"

Said Mark and Robyn.


	4. Intro: Tira Tanaka

At a combat school in mistral two students were fighting. one was a scorpion faunus as could be seen by her black and red tail , she wore a black trenchcoat, jeans, and a bra, she had black hair with red highlights tied into three ponytails, one over each shoulder and one down here back, she had red eyes and a large black broadsword which could be held in one or two hands. The boy had brown hair, orange eyes, a brown leather jacket with a bright orange trim, along with brown trackpants, in his hands were a pair of shotguns, brown with orange flames painted onto them. The girl delivered an overhead slash which the boy nimbly twirled out of the way of, firing a blast of fire dust from his shotgun, the girl took the blast head on and unfazed, she slashed at the boy who backpedalled and then moved to attack, only to be met with a punch to the face

"Ow, I know I said to cover your openings, but that's just demeaning"

The girl just grinned and said

"Do this, don't do this, jeez, you're as bad at sticking to one place in a conversation as you are in a fight"

"Hey, not everyone has enough aura to protect a whole village worth of people"

"Whatever"

She charged the boy. He fired several rounds from his shotguns, only to see the girl burst from the smoke and perform a 180 degree horizontal slash, followed by a tail jab and then an overstrike swing creating a crater in the floor. The first two attacks landed, and as the sword arced towards him, the boy burst into flames only to reform a few meters back, and begin shooting at her. The girl barreled towards him and tackled him to the ground pinning him, as he struggled to move her tail jabbed at his face

"BZZZZZT"

A buzzer rang as the tail made contact with his aura, causing it to flicker and die.

"And with that, Tira Tanaka defeats Lance Broan!"

Called their teacher Mr. Lee before whispering to them

"Great job you two, you've been model students all year"

At the end of class the two were sitting by one of the trees in the yard, and Tira said

"It's funny, you just discovered your semblance a month ago and you're already reliant on it in a fight"

Lance said

"What can i say, I'm a quick learner"

"You're a coward, that's what"

"Oh shut up, I could kick your ass"

"Like you did in class today?"

"Okay, maybe not yet, but i'll catch up while we're at Haven"

At that Tira paused

"I'm… not going to Haven"

"You're not?"

"Beacon has free attendance, it would be cheaper to go vale than to pay the ridiculous price that Lionheart's charging"

"But, i could pay for you, my parents have tons of money"

"You know they won't do that, they hate me for being a faunus and even for being poor, plus, I already got my papers, I'm leaving at the end of the year"

"But..."

"I know, I hate to leave my best friend, my only friend"

Tira embraced Lance and they stood there for a few minutes, crying. Eventually Tira said

"I know that I have trouble making friends but it'll work out, I know it"

"Yeah"

said Lance

"See you at the Vytal festival I guess"

And with that they walked their separate ways, with less than a month left until time would cut them away from each other.


	5. Chapter 1: With Friends Like These

**Rachel:**

As Rachel stood aboard the airship that would take her to beacon she recalled the conversation that had lead her here, it had been two weeks since she had assassinated Max Brall, and she had still been laying low to avoid detection, when her scroll rang, at first she was uncertain, but she had rashly decided that little harm could come of answering. She was quite lucky that her slip up had not put her on the phone with the authorities, however she had at first been quite surprised when the voice on the other end had said "Hello, Rachel Cross, my name is professor Ozpin", however her initial fear had mellowed down throughout the conversation:

"P-professor Ozpin"

"*chuckles* yes, that is my name dear"

"No way, this is a trick, it's the police, isn't it..."

"I assure you th..."

"ISN'T IT!?"

"Young lady, continue with that behaviour and I will tell the authorities of your apartment"

"Alright… professor Ozpin, why are you calling me, Hell, how are you calling me"

"I have more contacts and informants than you would even believe possible, I have the means to find anyone"

"So what do you want?"

"I promise you that I want nothing, I am simply awestruck by what you did a few weeks back, my records suggest that you have never attended a combat school, is this accurate?"

"Yes"

"So you're a prodigy then"

"First I'm hearing of it"

"Well, Ms. Cross, in three or so months beacon will be begin teaching the new students, and I believe that your talents will place you right at home among our best and brightest"

"What's the catch?"

"May I ask you something? Have you always been this suspicious of people? Or was it learned?"

"Learned,"

"I see, and one more question, where did you acquire your weapon?"

Just then, Rachel's inner thought was interrupted

"Hi there, what's your name"

Rachel looked up to see a scrawny blonde boy with blue eyes looking at her

"Rachel Cross, yours?"

"Jaune Arc"

Rachel rose to her feet

"well, good to meet you Jaune"

 **Pirin:**

Pirin was having a headache with all the noise of people chattering around him, to his left were two girls in red and yellow loudly conversing, in front of him a girl and a boy, were talking equally loudly, one wore white and pink with short orange hair, the other wore green, and had black hair with a pink streak in it. Pirin decided to walk over to the back where there were less people, as he walked over he saw a black haired girl with a ribbon in her hair sitting and reading a book, Pirin increased the zoom on the HUD displayed over his right eye to read the book's title: "O'Malley" he mused, "isn't that the story about the man with two souls?". Deciding that this girl had good taste or was at least quieter than the rest of the airship he decided to make small talk, he walked over and sat next to her and said

"O'Malley, eh? How are you liking it"

The girl looked up at him with a less than welcoming expression

"I'm liking it just fine, thank you"

"What's your name?"

"Blake"

"Nice to meet you Blake"

"And yours?"

"Wh- oh, yes, apologies, my name is Pirin D'or"

"You're from Atlas then? I figured from the accent, just wanted to be sure"

"Yes, I often travelled between Vale and Atlas, I must say though, Vale is a more welcoming place, I rather prefer it"

"Are you talking about faunus?"

"Faunus, sexuality, Vale is generally the most open kingdom"

Blake put down her book.

 **Nova:**

Nova was bored, she was often bored, she just couldn't sit still, it was the reason that she and the rest of her friend group had opted to let life outside the walls be their teacher until they were old enough to go to combat schools, but being hyperactive did nothing to help in this kind of a situation. So she decided to go to the first person she saw, a white haired girl in a dress

"Hi there, I'm Nova, what's your name?"

The girl turned around and Nova immediately scolded herself for being so creepily talkative

"W-Weiss"

"Nice to meet you Weiss, what's your weapon?"

Nova was careful to dial back the creepy friendliness

"This is Myrtenaster, my dust rapier"

Weiss showed Nova her rapier

"Oh, you use dust too? I don't technically have a weapon, I'm just good at using dust so I tend to use a ton of dust as my weapon, I like it, it makes me feel like some kind of wizard"

Nova realized she was rambling and decided to stop

"What's your semblance?"

"My semblance is a protective sphere, it allows me to project a shield around a target, so with my old group I would usually be best in a support role"

"Interesting, my semblance is glyphs"

"Like Schnee glyphs?"

"Yeah"

Nova could tell that she had accidentally struck a nerve

 **Tira:**

Tira rubbed her fingers across her necklace, it had been given to her by Lance on the last day of school, the necklace was a ruby carved into the shape of a fire with a metal scorpion on top of it. She was feeling quite uncomfortable with the amount of people around her, she had never been good at making friends, Lance had been her first friend ever, and she had only warmed up to him after a few months, and there was no way she could have that type of bonding time with this many people around. Thinking back on it, she was quite a shy person, had Lance known this and just never told her? She missed lance, she wondered if the necklace he had given to her had any sort of other meaning. Suddenly she saw a red haired girl, a very familiar looking one in fact. "Pyrrha? Pyrrha Nikos?" Tira thought to herself, She had fought Pyrrha in an the last Mistral regional tournament, and lost miserably, she could barely landed a blow, her sword missing every strike while she landed one strike with her tail. She considered talking to Pyrrha, but considering that she was just a notch on Pyrrha's sword, and she didn't feel like embarrassing herself like that with this many people around her. Tira spent the rest of the flight in a corner, continuing to look at her amulet.


	6. Chapter 2: The Shining Beacon

**Rachel:**

As Rachel walked off of the airship Jaune ran to the lavatory to vomit for the fifth time, his motion sickness was definitely a real thing. So while Rachel stood at the door waiting for him, she observed a girl dressed in red and black get in an argument of sorts with a white haired… "Oh Fuck" thought Rachel as she recognized the Schnee logo on the second girl's back. Just then Jaune got back,

"Who's that white haired girl, she's pretty"

Rachel caught Jaune by the hoody as he walked towards the Schnee with a lovestruck expression,

"Woah there, loverboy. She doesn't seem to be in the mood to be hit on at the moment. My suggestion is that you talk to her some other time"

"Oh, okay"

Rachel returned to watching to see a black haired girl wearing a bow walk up to the two, and almost said aloud "Faunus", it was the oldest trick in the book yet people without faunus interaction never seemed to catch up on it. Once the three had gone their separate ways Rachel said to Jaune,

"Hey, let's go help the red one"

As they walked up to her Jaune held out his hand and said

"Hey… I'm Jaune"

"Ruby. Aren't you the guy that threw up on the ship?"

Rachel decided to chime in

"Yes he is, sorry about your yellow haired friend's shoes"

"Oh, you mean Yang? She's my sister"

"Sister? You two look nothing alike"

"Half sister,"

"Oh, i'm sorry to hear that"

 **Pirin:**

Pirin watched Blake interject into the conversation between the noisy red girl from earlier and the Schnee heiress. "Well, someone's quite brave" he thought as Blake talked about the SDC's crimes. Pirin didn't feel like standing around, so he headed off to the auditorium. Somewhere along the walk he saw the noisy boy and girl from the airship, only now he noticed that the boy wasn't particularly talkative, the girl had just been making enough noise for the two of them. "So the black haired quiet boy is a possible teammate" analyzed Pirin, so far his options were Blake and… what was his name? Pirin decided to learn the boy's name even though it meant putting up with the girl's chatter.

"Hello there,"

The girl spoke first

"Hi! I'm Nora"

Pirin winced at the pitch of her voice, then the boy spoke

"My name is Lie Ren, and this is Nora"

Ren gestured to Nora, clearly aware of Pirin's inner thoughts

"I see, my name is Pirin"

 **Nova:**

Nova and Weiss's conversation had ended after a few minutes. She could tell that Weiss was a nice person at heart, she just didn't seem like great teammate material, Nova had seen entitled people before and knew to avoid them. As she headed to the auditorium though, she saw a group of other students, and decided to go make some friends

"Hey"

The group turned to look at her, so she decided to finish up her sentence

"Hi, I'm new here, and I was wondering if you guys knew where to go"

One girl stepped up, she had blonde hair and lilac eyes,

"No, we were looking for the auditorium ourselves. Want to join us?"

"Sure. my name's Nova by the way"

"Yang"

 **Tira:**

As Tira walked down the path she heard two voices,

"Please, stop"

"And who's gonna make me? Your freak friends?"

Tira turned to see what the commotion was and turned to see a kid with short brown hair standing over a lavender haired faunus girl. "Bully" Tira muttered under her breath, then the boy grabbed the girl by her fox ears. "Son of a bitch" Tira thought, all concept of self consequences gone, she charged the boy and pushed him to the ground. As the boy got to his feet he drew his weapon, a mace, Tira decided that two could play at such a game and placed both hands on the sword at her side. The boy rushed her, she spun whipping him back with her tail.

"Another freak? Are you all some kind of hive mind?"

His remark was met with an overhead strike that he blocked, he swung at Tira, but the attack bounced off of her aura. Her next swing was more carefully placed, and uppercut from her sword broke his defence and sent his mace flying. He stood dumbstruck at the force of her strike until a punch sent him sprawling, the boy looked up to see Tira's foot line up and kick him in the face, rendering him unconscious. Tira turned to the faunus girl who was staring in awe, and looked a bit frightened when Tira looked at her, Tira decided to defuse the tension.

"D-don't worry, I won't hurt you"

"Really? You just beat that kid up"

The girl was clearly also quite shy, this fact gave Tira a burst of confidence to say

"He was a bully, either way my name is Tira, what's yours?"

"Larua"

"Nice to meet you Larua"

 **Rachel:**

"All I'm saying is that motion sickness is a much more common problem than people let on"

Rachel was listening to Jaune and Ruby bicker

"Look, I'm sorry, Vomit boy was the first thing that came to mind"

"Oh yeah, what if I called you Crater-face"

"Hey th..."

Rachel decided to burst in and stop their argument

"Alright you two, let's change the subject"

Ruby pouted

"Fine. Okay, I got this thing"

Ruby's massive scythe pierced into the ground causing Jaune and Rachel to both recoil in surprise and at the same time say

"Woah!"

Jaune followed up with

"Is that a scythe?"

"It's also a customizable high velocity sniper rifle"

"A wha?"

"It's also a gun"

"Oh, that's cool"

"So what've you got"

"Oh uh, I got this sword"

"Oooooooh"

"Yeah, I've got a shield too"

"So, what do they do?"

Ruby tapped the shield causing it to spring out of Jaune's hand, Rachel couldn't help but find the reaction hilarious

"Well, the shield gets smaller, so… when I get tired of carrying it… I can just put it away"

Ruby and Rachel simultaneously said

"But wouldn't it weigh the same?"

"Yeah it does"

Ruby turned to Rachel

"How about you"

"Oh, I've got this sniper rifle. I call it Faeshift."

"Does it do anything special"

Rachel detached Faeshift into it's pistol and staff mode

"Well, at close range I can remove the grip and use it as a separate pistol, while using the rest of the rifle as a staff"

"Cool"


	7. Chapter 3: The Shining Beacon, Part 2

**Rachel:**

Rachel, Ruby, and Jaune walked into the auditorium

"Ruby! Over here! I saved you a spot!"

Ruby's sister from earlier was calling her over

"Oh, Hey I gotta go! I'll see you after the ceremony"

"Hey wait! Great. Where am I supposed to find another nice, quirky girl to talk to"

Rachel decided to interject with

"So what am I? Chopped liver?"

Jaune turned around

"Oh, sorry I didn't mean..."

"It's fine, I'm generally a forgettable person"

"Yeah, sorry though"

"I said it's fine, don't get yourself killed apologizing"

"Okay"

Rachel turned toward the stage as Ozpin cleared his throat. He looked exactly as she would've expected from his voice, old and tired, she wondered how old he actually was. The rustle of students leaving the auditorium awoke her from her stupor and she looked around to see everyone walking for the door. Rachel followed suit.

 **Pirin:**

Pirin shuffled into the auditorium, distracted by his inner list, so far his potential teammates were Ren and Blake, not good considering that standardized huntsman teams were made up of four people. So Pirin looked around for a third teammate, his hand brushed his right temple and the HUD appeared over his right eye. Using the school's student list, Pirin scanned the students, Weiss Schnee: not happening, Larua : maybe seeing as she was labelled as an introvert, Tira Tanaka: possibly as she was also introverted, Jaune Arc: he seemed nice and he wasn't too hard on the eyes, Rachel Cross: blank? This girl had no history. "An enigma?" Pirin thought, "That might be something fun to look into". Pirin was suddenly jostled by a boy with reddish brown hair and a black eye,

"Out of the way, pipsqueak"

The kid muttered, Pirin just stared dumbfounded at the nerve of this boy, "To be making enemies on the first day, in a school where anyone could harbor some incredible power? Not too bright, is he?" Pirin thought to himself as he followed the rest of the students.

 **Nova:**

The yellow haired girl, Yang, was waving to a girl in a red hoodie and an adorable black combat skirt. As the girl walked over Nova couldn't help but squeal

"And who is this?"

She laughed as she ruffled the girl's hair

"Her name's Ruby"

Nova looked at the adorable girl, who was making an odd facial expression, her face was red, and her eyes were squinting. "Uncomfortable" Nova finally pinned it, she suddenly removed her hand from Ruby's head

"Sorry"

She stumbled back, and Ruby turned to her, fuming. Yang laughed

"Seems you two are getting along great"

"I said I was sorry"

 **Tira:**

Tira and Larua were chatting about themselves and why they were at beacon

"So how about you? Why did you come to Beacon"

Larua asked Tira

"Simply? I didn't have the money to go to Haven academy, Beacon was free, so I decided to come here,"

"Interesting"

"I left my best friend behind at Haven, that was probably the hardest part, he gave me this necklace too."

Larua regarded the necklace with curiosity

"Wow, he gave you that?"

"Yeah, why do you ask?"

"Because, something like that means he loves you."

 **Rachel:**

Rachel lay in the corner of the ballroom observing the chaos unfolding on the other side, Ruby and Yang were talking with a white haired girl and a black haired girl, the black haired girl blew out a candle, causing the other three to stumble around in some hilarious positions, "there's no way they're that stupid" thought Rachel, they can see… Rachel realised that it was her heritage that let her see them. Her ears fluttered slightly under her locks of hair, carefully hidden, the hair held in place by a few clips colored perfectly to blend in with the rest of the hair.

"Hi"

Rachel practically jumped in surprise, standing before her was a scraggly boy with brown short hair, a prosthetic arm, and an outfit that consisted of dark grey composite armor and yellow cloth. The boy had a light french accent and a strange presence around him as if he was thinking about something else at the same time.

"Hello?"

"Mind if I sit here?"

Rachel didn't know whether to say no for fear that the boy would come onto her, or give him permission to sit, as her habit of making rash decisions would have it, the boy was tantalizingly mysterious

"Sure, if you hit on me though, you're out"

"Oh, you don't have to worry 'bout that"

"Okay, so why do you want to sit here then?"

"You're quiet, so that automatically makes you a tolerable person to talk to"

Rachel began to wonder to herself about the boy

"Wait, what is your name anyways?"

"Pirin. Yours?"

"Rachel"

The two spoke for a while longer, Rachel fishing out facts about the boy, before the two finally drifted to sleep.

 **Pirin:**

Pirin walked into the ballroom and practically stumbled as he saw the boys and girls were practically separated by an invisible line. He figured that he should look into that mysterious Rachel girl, so he tapped his right temple and the HUD popped up over his right eye. Pirin began looking around, scanning people until he saw Rachel sitting in a corner on the girl side. Pirin walked over to Rachel.

"Hi"

She jumped in surprise, Pirin took a moment to examine her, she wore a green hood and cape, under which she had a dark grey bulletproof vest and jeans, her hair was mauve and she was compact in build. He noticed she was observing him, good, that meant she didn't know him yet, that meant she didn't know much about him.

"Hello?"

She was uncertain, Pirin could tell that she had been startled, so he decided to go for a more friendly vibe

"Mind if I sit here?"

She was hesitating, so be it, he could wait, he was quite good at waiting, it was a good time to think, her words pulled him out of his inner reflection

"Sure, if you hit on me though, you're out"

Pirin almost laughed at the idea, okay, so she's not suspicious of anything that matters

"Oh, you don't have to worry 'bout that"

"Okay, so why do you want to sit here then?"

"You're quiet, so that automatically makes you a tolerable person to talk to"

The girl mulled that over to herself, before her face lit up with a thought,

"Wait, what is your name anyways"

"Pirin"

Pirin suddenly remembered that Rachel was not aware he knew her name and added

"Yours?"

"Rachel"

The two spoke for a while longer, Pirin answering her questions as he slowly let the girl warm up to him, before the two finally drifted to sleep.

 **Nova:**

Nova had left the two sisters as they entered the ballroom, she now saw them speaking with a black haired girl, she couldn't quite hear what they were hearing, Nova began to reminisce about stories she had heard outside the walls, apparently faunus had incredible vision, hearing, or any combination of, Nova wished she had that hearing right now. Nova was about to get closer to the three when she saw a familiar white haired heiress approaching them, "Oh, this is about to get shouty" Nova thought as she stayed put to avoid hearing the four inevitably get into an argument. Nova turned her head to look at some of the other students, she saw a black haired girl, Nova suddenly noticed that the girl had a large scorpion tail wrapped around herself, and the girl she was talking to had lavender fox ears. Nova was still somewhat surprised by the amount of faunus she was seeing, outside the walls she had rarely seen a faunus, the sudden amount she was encountering now was honestly breathtaking.

 **Tira:**

"No way"

It wasn't a complicated response, but it was the only one Tira could come up with after five minutes of thinking. Larua was claiming that Lance loved her, that wasn't possible though, she and Lance had been friends, just friends.

"Deny it if you like, but I know what love looks like"

"We were just friends, we sparred on a daily basis"

"So? A friendly sparring match doesn't mean that you aren't in love, if anything it brings you closer together. And a gift on the last day that you'll see someone for a long time is just a stereotypical thing for lovers to do"

Tira couldn't believe it, everything Larua said made perfect sense, she just couldn't bring herself to think that Lance was in love with her, it was so surreal,

"How about me?"

"How about you? What do you mean?"

"Am I in love with Lance? Did I love him too and just never know what love felt like?"

"Maybe, did you feel fluttery when you were with him? Like you don't want to mess up?"

"I feel like that around everybody"

"Was it the same type with everybody?"

"I guess it felt a bit different around Lance, that can't be all though"

"Okay, how about this, how often did you think about him? All the time?"

"Yeah, I guess, but that could just be because I didn't have any other friends"

"I'm not sure either, it looks like love to me though"

"Okay, I'll take your word for it"

Tira lay down, taking a moment to process the new information, she noticed then that she had wrapped her tail around her body, it was a nervous habit that she assumed started as an instinctive fight-or-flight response, for the tail to be used as some extra armor. Tira thought to herself for hours before finally deciding to herself, yeah, I love Lance, I love-love Lance.

 _Author:_

feel free to review, if you have any questions, ideas, or theories, feel free to tell me.


	8. Chapter 4: The First Step

**Rachel:**

Rachel woke up with a start when she didn't recognize where she was, it took her a few seconds to realize that she was in the ballroom of Beacon academy, still lying against the wall where she had gone to rest the night before. She turned to see what had woken her, the boy, Pirin was sauntering off to the cafeteria, "it's so early" she thought as she looked down at her watch. Despite the time, Rachel was hungry, so she followed Pirin to the cafeteria. Later on the two sat at a table in the back corner, Rachel was eating pancakes and Pirin was eating scrambled eggs, this was just when the other kids started to pour in.

"ARE THOSE PANCAKES?!"

Rachel turned to see an orange haired girl with a manic expression on her face, she turned back to see Pirin inwardly groan, and then say to the girl

"Hi, Nora"

After a while longer Nora ran off screaming about pancakes, causing Pirin and Rachel to wince. Rachel asked Pirin

"Do you know her?"

"Met her yesterday"

"Is she always that loud?"

"As far as I've seen, yes"

 **Pirin:**

A few minutes after an encounter with the redheaded chatterbox that was Nora, Pirin and Rachel were equipping their weapons in the locker room. Pirin looked over at Rachel and gestured to her weapon

"What's that?"

"This is Faeshift, a high calibre sniper rifle, or a dust based pistol and a staff, how about yours?"

"I have my shock batons, I call them Lumine Edge, I also have my carbine, Blitz"

"Umm, what's a carbine again?"

"It's like a cross between an assault rifle and a submachine gun. Yeah, it's overcomplicated"

"Oh"

Pirin chuckled as he remembered receiving his weaponry from Hexade, they had asked him to field test their equipment and said that he could keep copies of the completed models, he then remembered the best part of the technology,

"Oh! And I haven't even showed you the best part!"

He reached out his right arm, showing Rachel the yellow gauntlet with several small chambers of lightning dust loaded in

"It's called the skyguard system, I can shoot down projectiles with it,"

"Wow… just wow"

Rachel looked at the gauntlet, perplexed. She then followed up her statement with

"Can it shoot people?"

"Not effectively, the precision bolts it uses to destroy objects are really inefficient when it comes to power. If I locked a person then their aura would absorb the whole battery's worth of energy without sustaining a scratch"

"Oh"

Pirin saw some of the other students entering the locker room, he and Rachel both covered their ears as Nora walked by chatting with Ren. Pirin and Rachel returned to inspecting their weapons, Pirin making sure his ammunition belt was fully loaded, Rachel was examining and cleaning the mechanisms in her rifle. After a few minutes the two turned and walked towards the cliff where the initiation was supposed to happen.

 **Nova:**

Nova woke up in the ballroom, she had slept well, travelling outside the walls had taught her to sleep just about anywhere. As she walked to the cafeteria she felt a hand on her shoulder

"Hi"

Nova turned around to see a blond haired boy with sapphire blue eyes, as she took him in she noticed his shirt and couldn't help but laugh

"What the hell is that?!"

"It's Pumpkin Pete"

"Who's Pumpkin Pete?"

"You know, the cereal?"

Nova thought and then shook her head

"Nope, never heard of it"

"Either way, what's your name? I'm Jaune Arc"

"Nice to meet you Jaune, I'm Nova Algos"

Some time later the two were putting on their equipment in the locker room, Nova checking her box of dust before slinging it across her shoulder, Jaune however was putting on his armor, strapping his shield to his side, and then putting the sword into the shield. Nova giggled when his shield burst out of sheath form and fell to the ground for the third time

"You may want to get that spring adjusted"

"Yeah"

Jaune sighed dejectedly before suddenly brightening up, Nova followed his gaze to see him looking at Weiss

"Oh god"

Nova tried to stop Jaune from talking to Weiss but gave up deciding that he would just have to get over her. So Nova walked to the cliff

 **Tira:**

Tira had had an uneventful wake-up and was now eating oatmeal with Larua, the two were discussing preferred teammates

"Anyone but that kid who was bullying me yesterday would be fine"

"Maybe that girl with the black bow? She seems friendly, and I have the sneaking suspicion she's a faunus"

"I think so too. Ooh, how about that cute blond boy over there? The one with the bunny on his shirt"

Tira turned to see the boy Larua was looking at

"Yeah, he is cute"

A short while later Tira was sharpening her bastard sword, with velvet watching.

"Larua, don't you have a weapon?"

"No, afraid not, I'm decent at hand to hand combat, but I'm looking into getting a weapon this year. That reminds me, is there anything special about your weapon? Does it have a name?"

"There isn't any fancy weapon built into my sword, I couldn't afford anything like that, as for a name, I call my sword Scorpius"

"Good name, a bit lazy, but still a good name"

"Oh come on, it works"

"How about your semblance?"

"My semblance allows me to channel my aura into a miniature earthquake, it's really useful for messing with an enemy's balance, or just as an attack. How about you?"

"My semblance lets me phase between dimensions, I call it 'Netherstep' as I generally use a dimension with a different timeflow so that I seem to teleport"

"Neat. Hey, does this look sharp enough to you?"

Laura carefully regarded the heavy black sword

"Looks good, now then let's go, we're gonna be late for the initiation"

 _Author:_

Okay, I've fixed the formatting issues regarding paragraphs


	9. Chapter 5: The First Step, Part 2

**Rachel:**

Wind rushed through her hair, Rachel could feel every small gust of wind against her ears, it was exhilarating. And then Rachel returned her attention to the ground, she needed a landing strategy, now. "Okay, I have my grappling hook, but there's no way I could manage to snag it onto a tree at this speed. How about my staff? No, Mitch will kill me" Rachel carefully planned, she felt like she was going crazy from just doing nothing as she plummeted towards the earth. "This is insane, does he WANT us to die? Why is it that the one time a rash decision could actually help, I can't think of anything. Why am I suddenly so indecisive? OH GOD! OH GOD! I'M GONNA DIE! I'M GONNA -". Without even thinking about it Rachel adjusted position and landed into a roll, finishing in a crouching stance

"Well, that helps. I forgot that instincts could do that"

Rachel rose up and began to look around for the temple, she took that moment to wish cats had an internal compass.

 **Pirin:**

Pirin soared through the air, he hadn't payed much attention to the headmaster's speech, but he had caught the mention of a landing strategy, an old fashioned tactic, but it could be managed on the spot. Pirin tapped his right temple and the HUD appeared

"Calculate trajectory"

He muttered, the HUD beeped in confirmation and on the screen read "Look down". As Pirin followed the order the HUD beeped again and a timer appeared in the top left.

"Thirty-seven seconds, alright."

Pirin entered a position where his descent would be slowed, and then proceeded to charge his aura, a light-blue field started to materialize around pirin as he neared the ground. Just as he struck the earth, his aura field flared, creating a crater in the ground, and little to no effect on his aura reserves.

 **Nova:**

Nova had just discovered that she really couldn't care less for flying, she grabbed two fire dust crystals from her bandolier and crushed them in her hands, causing two jets of flame to shoot out of her hands. Nova flew towards the ground, before rearing her flames to immediately stop the fall, before stopping the flames and falling the last foot to the ground.

 **Tira:**

As Tira approached the ground, she drew her sword and slammed it into the ground, where it embedded itself and stopped her. Tira pulled her sword from the ground and began walking towards the temple. As Tira walked through the forest she heard a girl muttering in the bushes, Tira couldn't recognize the voice, and during the few moments she was thinking, the girl walked out of the bushes

"Hi"

Tira froze when she saw the girl, she didn't know what to do, what if this girl made fun of her? The girl had mauve hair, a green cloak, a bulletproof vest, and jeans, she was a bit short. The girl continued to regard Tira, who was frozen in fear

"Hello?"

The girl noticed Tira and her face went from that of a flat observer, to one of understanding, to a friendly expression

"You're a faunus? Don't worry, I'm one too"

The girl removed something from her hair, a clip, and wiggled one cat ear before putting the clip back into place causing a lock of hair to obscure the ear. During this display Tira had been nervously rubbing her necklace, and when the girl revealed her heritage, it gave Tira a boost in confidence, allowing her to speak

"Oh… Okay, my name is Tira, yeah, I'm a faunus. What's your name?"

"I'm Rachel, I wasn't paying much attention to the headmaster's speech, but I'm pretty sure we're teammates now"

"Yeah, I think so"

As the two girls walked towards the temple a loud groaning noise could be heard in the distance.

 **Pirin:**

A beowulf slashed at Pirin, he used his right baton to block the strike, before jabbing the beowulf in the stomach with the other, he then proceeded to curbstomp it, finishing it off. As Pirin turned to face the remaining stragglers of the pack, he released his batons and they flew back to their mag-locks at his sides, Pirin drew his carbine and began shooting at the beowulfs, the first two fell with a few bolts each, the last one however jumped behind a rock. Pirin slowly walked towards the beowulf's hiding spot

"Come on out little wolf"

He muttered while quietly reloading his carbine. Suddenly a bolt of fire flew over Pirin's shoulder blowing the rock to fragments, several of which embedded themselves in the beowulf. Pirin stared as the beowulf flopped over and dissolved, he then turned around to see an orange haired girl in a flowing pink dress with a satchel over her right shoulder walking towards him. She opened her mouth to speak

"Hi there, my name's Nova, how about you?"

"Umm… Pirin"

"Good to meet you Pirin! So, teammates I guess?"

Pirin couldn't help but shake the feeling that this girl was Nora's secret twin, they had the names, the hair color, the eyes, the sunny disposition, it was surreal.

"Yeah. Teammates."

 _Author:_

How's it going guys? Firstly I recommend that you re-read chapters 2 to 4 as I did some significant edits, I was reminded by a reviewer that team CFVY aren't first-years, so I replaced Velvet with another girl. As for the similarity between Nora and Nova, I recently noticed and decided to make a joke out of it.


	10. Chapter 6: The Emerald Forest

**Rachel:**

As Tira and Rachel walked through the forest their attention was caught by an ear-piercing shriek. As the two turned to see what had made the noise they saw it's source: off in the distance something was dragging a colossal nevermore up the cliff, before decapitating it entirely. Rachel was the first to speak

"Holy shit, I do not want to get in the path of whoever did that"

"Yeah"

The two turned to continue walking, slightly terrified by the amount of power one of the hunters in training possessed. Elsewhere in the forest another creature of Grimm found their fear palpable, it opened it's mouths and cried in agony as it moved for the first time in half a year.

 **Pirin:**

Nova was trouble a double edged sword, on the one hand her cheery persona would deter the Grimm, however on the other, Pirin wondered how long he could go before he shouted at her to shut up. While considering the remaining lifespan of the girl based on the amount of time he would be in proximity of her as a teammate compared to how much of her incessant chatter he could handle, he caught a snippet of what she was saying

"... so yeah, then I jammed an ice bolt through its mask and killed it, that was one of our best fights"

"Hold on, sorry, I was busy thinking, but what was this thing?"

"A gheist"

"What size"

"Oh, um, about thirty meters tall"

"You're kidding, right?"

"Why would I be kidding?"

"Because, a gheist that size takes, like a whole team of huntsmen to take down"

"I've got no idea, we killed it, that's the basic summary"

"I have to say, you terrify me"

"Cool, hold on"

 **Nova:**

"Cool, hold on"

Nova pointed at the temple and Pirin turned to look

"Oh, wow, I didn't even see it"

So the two looked from one pedestal to another

"Black pawn?"

"How about no?"

"White pawn"

"No, I don't want to be associated with a sacrifice"

"Black bishop"

"Fine"

As Nova picked up the bishop they turned to watch the forest as they heard a rustling, out walked two girls, one wore a green hood, jeans, and combat vest, the other wore a black trenchcoat, black jeans, and black bra. The green hooded girl spoke first

"Hi Pirin"

"Hi"

 **Tira:**

Tira stared at the two people in front of her, the girl wore a long pink dress and a leather strap slung over her shoulder with a wooden box at her side, the boy was slender and wore some kind of grey armor, a weird gauntlet on his right hand, and a robotic left arm. The two were intimidating, the boy's body language was cold, and the girl looked ecstatic. Tira struggled to speak, but couldn't get the words to come, she looked away bashfully and began to rub her amulet. Suddenly they all heard a growl from the forest, Rachel took the initiative and barked an order

"Open fire!"

Pirin began firing his carbine, Rachel entered a crouching position and began sniping into the forest, and Nova began to spray a colorful barrage of dust. Tira looked at the three of them as they fired. "What can I do? I don't have a gun" suddenly an answer popped to her head, it sounded exactly like how she remembered Lance had once told her "do what you do best, raise hell". She leaped forwards landing right in front of the treeline and jammed her sword into the ground, causing the earth to begin to move sporadically, the trees began to fall over as the ground turned to liquids. The four students stared at what the trees had been obscuring, a large humanoid Grimm, it was ten feet tall with a large crocodile like head, a black mist trailing from behind it, and the most terrifying part, on the upper left part of its neck was a human like face. The creature regarded them, before its humanoid head began to scream as the black mist spread to the trees around it, turning them to a black sludge.

 _Author:_

Hey guys and gals! So yeah, I made a bit of a slip up when using Velvet as a first year, so I switched her out for Larua, on the topic of Larua though, I still need two people for her team. If you PM me a team including Larua Castellon and Yumi Skyguard then I will make the one I like best cannon


	11. Chapter 7: Players And Pieces

**Rachel:**

Rachel couldn't believe her eyes, she couldn't even recognize this Grimm, It was some kind of humanoid crocodile, but that wasn't even the scariest part, she couldn't tell what was scarier, the groaning humanoid face sticking out of the upper left part of its neck, the black mist trailing the Grimm, or the fact that it was ten whole feet tall. As the four of them stared upon the Grimm with fear, it's human head began to shriek and the mist began to whip around sporadically. Rachel decided to take the initiative

"Keep firing"

The entire team began attacking the Grimm, Pirin firing his carbine, Nova shooting fire, and Rachel separated her rifle and began firing the pistol. The projectiles did not do anything to the large Grimm. Tira slashed at the Grimm, only for its bracer like shells to block the swing, Tira backpedalled as it's mist whipped at her. The team continued attacking, Pirin's lightning had no effect on its shells, Nova's fire was snuffed out by the mist, and Rachel's bullets ricocheted off of its armor. Rachel herself could tell that nothing was happening, so Rachel decided to make a plan

"Okay, this thing is big, It may not be too good on its feet. Tira, slow it down"

"On it!"

Tira stabbed her sword into the ground, and the ground began to liquify. As the Grimm stepped forwards its foot fell onto the earth, as it tried to rip itself from the ground its other leg became stuck in the the earth as well. Tira pulled her sword out of the ground and the earth solidified around the Grimm's feet. The Grimm screeched in rage as it tried to pull itself free, the rock however refused to move. Rachel grinned and called to her fellow huntsmen

"Well done! Now let's fini..."

"Look out!"

Pirin shoved her to the ground just as a tree slammed the ground right where Rachel had stood.

"Thanks, but what was that?"

Rachel looked up at the Tree, it was black, with red eyes in it's knotholes, and spindly hands in place of its branches, it was standing using its roots as legs. Rachel was sure that this weird tree like Grimm had not been there moments ago, as she looked around she saw trees blackening and moving, red eyes forming along them as they came to life, and one thing that they all had in common? The mist had touched them. Rachel stared at the mist in terror as countless plants and animals mutated into aberrations, trees into strange monsters, grass into black tentacles, and an unlucky squirrel grew a white shell and it's eyes turned black. Rachel saw one option

"Fall back, there's no way we can beat all of these"

Luckily the rest of the group agreed that an honourable fight wasn't in their best interests.

 **Pirin:**

As they ran through the forest Pirin analyzed what he had seen, his HUD hadn't been able to recognize the Grimm that had attacked them, and this thing could turn aura-less creatures into more Grimm. Pirin decided to help make a plan

"Okay, so that thing can turn plants and animals into creatures of Grimm, If we fight it we'll want to burn an open area. Also, does anyone have an idea how to hurt it?"

Tira answered his question with a shrug. This wasn't good, they could limit the enemy numbers, but if they couldn't kill the Grimm then they had no chance. He remembered it's second head, it had been utterly terrifying, but most frightening was that it could speak, did it have vocal chords? How human was it? Then he thought about what the human face had looked like, white skin, not armor, but skin

"Guys, I've got an idea for a possible weak-point"

"Where"

"That second face, the white material it had as skin doesn't seem particularly strong, I know it isn't much, but we may be able to hurt it that way"

"Don't beat yourself up Pirin, it's the first lead we've got. Alright, everybody, stop running, we can use this place as an ambush"

They all looked around at a large open clearing full of rocks, Pirin nodded and heard Rachel say

"Hey Nova, can you burn us some extra leg room?"

"On it"

As Nova scorched the trees and grass away, Pirin and Tira moved the rocks to use as barricades, Pirin was slightly unnerved by the girl's silence and fixation on her necklace, he was a quiet person, but this silence was ridiculous

"You Wanna' talk about something?"

The girl shook her head in a no. Pirin resumed the lifting and shouted to Rachel

"So how much longer do we have until that thing catches up to us?"

"No idea"

"What!? Why are we even setting up this ambush, we should be cutting for the cliff!"

"And run into that thing again!? Hell no! We're taking the advantage"

Pirin's blood boiled, this girl was choosing a theatrical ambush over survival

"..."

Pirin's oncoming torrent of wrath was cut short by a familiar groan from the forest, he and Rachel stood for a moment, shocked, before realising what they had just done, if that Grimm hadn't been chasing them before, it was now

"I'll keep guard, set up some traps"

Rachel muttered, Nova began to place dust crystals on the ground in positions where they would create a large explosion and a pit if shot. Pirin had been uncertain of this Nova girl earlier, but she was definitely knowledgeable and resourceful, he found that impressive

 **Nova:**

After finishing with the kill zone, Nova went and took a seat, she looked at the defences Pirin and that scorpion girl had set up, the rocks were set up to be stable, with carefully placed openings for weapon barrels, rocks set in place to kneel on, Pirin clearly had an idea of how this was supposed to go. Just then Rachel ran from the forest

"It's coming"

Pirin jumped to his feet and drew his gun thingie, Nova didn't know the specifics of firearms

"How long?"

"Maybe a minute, it was lumbering through the trees pretty slowly. Everyone get behind the barricades"

"On it!"

The other three called out in synchronization, Nova found that amusing. A moment later the four were kneeling and watching the smoke roll out from the trees, as the tension seemed to slow time down, then they saw the Grimm's red eves through the smoke

"Shoot it! don't shoot the dust yet!"

The group followed Rachel's order without hesitation, lightning, ice, and bullets filled the air. The Grimm walked out from the mist and it's human head groaned. Rachel barked an order

"Pirin, Nova, shoot the body, look for weaknesses, I'll go for the human head"

The lightning and ice peppered the body with minimal effect, Rachel's bullet, however tore the face open, causing the first head to scream. The Grimm began charging towards them in anger. Nova sprayed fire onto the ground, lighting the dust ablaze, the explosion threw dirt everywhere, and caused the Grimm to scream in pain. As the dirt and smoke cleared the group saw a large amount of red eyes through the smoke, and then the eyes began to move. They saw the Trees moving forwards, Rachel barked them an order

"Nova, Pirin, shoot the Trees, Tira, immobilize the Grimm"

She followed her order, spraying a burst of flame at the trees, causing them to burn up.

 **Tira:**

Tira dug her sword into the ground, she closed her eyes and felt through the earth, felt the footsteps, she began to 'stir' the ground beneath the two feet, Tira had never been able to effectively explain her semblance, all she knew was that when she ran her aura into the ground through a conduit, she would be able to feel through the earth, and then she could pick some area and move it, she called it 'stirring' as that was what people said it looked like. Tira held her sword in the ground for about a minute and pulled her sword out from the ground and leaped and the Grimm, landing in front of it and delivering two slashes in an 'X' across its chest, the slashes had no significant effect. Tira parried the Grimm's retaliation attack and jumped back as it pulled itself from the ground. Tira heard an order from Rachel

"Nova, switch places with Tira, that Grimm is probably better attacked from a distance"

Tira ran at one of the Tree Grimm and slashed it in two. Then Tira saw Nova running circles around the main Grimm and shooting fire at it, it was keeping its front towards her and on its back Tira saw some sort of red pulsing object covered in a black film on its back, a bubble formed in the film and as it popped it released more of the black mist. Tira had one immediate idea

"Weakpoint"

She whispered to herself before dashing past Nova, past the Grimm, just as she was beside it she spun digging her tail into its back. The screeching noise that the Grimm made was ear piercing, it stumbled to the ground as Tira retracted her tail, a red liquid dripping from the tip. As the Grimm struggled to move Tira planted one foot on the snout of its main head, before dropping her sword right onto it's neck. She looked up from her beaten opponent to see the other three staring at her in awe, their thoughts were clearly plastered across their faces, 'holy crap'.

 **Rachel:**

"Rachel Cross, Pirin D'or, Nova Algos, and Tira Tanaka, together you will form Team RPNT (Repent)"

She listened to the Headmaster of beacon list their names, she was the team leader, she couldn't believe it, she would have stood in awe before Ozpin cleared his throat, reminding her to get off of the stage. As she walked off of the stage she looked at her new teammates, Pirin was honest and articulated, Nova was friendly, and able to defend her teammates, Tira was a combat savant, and she was also a faunus, which made her automatically seem like the most trustworthy person. In the background she heard Ozpin say

"Looks like things are shaping up to be an interesting year"

 _Author:_

So yeah, that's that, tell me what you think so far, how did you guys like my Grimm Plaguebearer? Also I'm still in need of two teammates for Larua Castellon and Yumi Skyguard. PM me ideas, theories, and questions!


	12. Chapter 8: Day One

**Rachel:**

Rachel woke up to the smell of meat and eggs, she quickly put on her clothes, undershirt, pants, vest, hoodie, all set. She then checked for her weapon, unable to find it she had a slight panic attack

"Where is it, where is it?"

Her questions were answered by Pirin's voice

"If you're talking about weapons and ammunition, they're in the lockers"

Right, how could she forget, foolish of her. She walked into the main room of their dorm where she saw Pirin and Nova working on the stove, Pirin seemed to be instructing Nova on how to use the machine

"Alright. If you turn that dial it turns the heat on that element to the value displayed on the dial"

"UGGH! Why can't I just start a cooking fire! This thing is so overcomplicated!"

"If you're honestly asking that question, then please remember that there is a sprinkler system"

"Fine. you do the cooking"

Nova walked over and flopped herself down on the couch, allowing Pirin to work on the bacon and eggs, Tira walked up next to Rachel

"What's all the commotion in here?"

"Pirin's making breakfast, Nova just decided that the stove is a match for her, it's probably not going to calm down over the next four years"

"Yikes"

Rachel walked over to the oven to see how Pirin was doing, he was making four over-easy eggs, and had put the bacon in the oven, he noticed her watching

"Oh, hey, what kind of cheese do you want on your egg? We've got cheddar, mozzarella, monterey jack, and marble"

"Marble"

"Cool, how about you, Tira?"

"Mozzarella"

Pirin resumed his work and cut a few slices of marble and mozzarella. Rachel walked to the couch where Nova was lying

"Hey, can you scooch over?"

Nova retracted her legs slightly, only to place them on Rachel's lap once she sat down

"Heh, you look tired"

"Yeah. what time is it?"

"About 7:30"

Tira piped in

"That's one-and-a-half hours until classes"

This elicited another groan from Nova. Rachel walked over to the table and read out their schedules

"So we all share a homeroom in Ms. Goodwitch's combat class, then besides that me and Nova have Dr. Oobleck's history class, while Pirin and Tira have Mr. Port's Grimm studies class, then we have lunch, in the afternoon Pirin and Tira have history while me and Nova are in Grimm studies. Last period we all have aura management with Mr. Kincaid"

Pirin then spoke up

"alright chaps, breakfast is served"

Pirin placed the plates around the table one-by-one before grabbing the oven mitts and a trivet and putting the bacon in the middle of the table

"There's twenty pieces of bacon, so that's five each"

"Got it"

The other three said in near-synchronization as they sat at their respective seats

 **Pirin:**

Pirin walked into the combat class and saw around him several students, a brunette wearing a beret and shades, a lavender haired girl with fox ears, the brown haired boy who had shoved him earlier, and a ginger haired girl wearing an outfit that seemed to be a combination of black kevlar under-armor and white plating overtop. The class was a myriad of people from all walks of life, Pirin always enjoyed seeing such diverse groups, it was nice, like a proud parent watching their kids having fun. Rachel called him over, breaking him from his internal monologue and he walked over to sit with the rest of team RPNT. Ms. Goodwitch walked onto the stage and began to speak

"For this first week I will be gauging your individual combat abilities, in later sessions I will make sure that the battles are more evenly matched, could someone please..."

Pirin raised his hand

"Aye"

"Alright, one other person? How about you, over there, Miss, Skyguard?"

The girl wearing the black and white armor that Pirin had been examining walked onto the stage, she was holding a rifle of some sort, and she had something on her back

"Please, call me Yumi"

"Very well… Pirin D'or versus Yumi Skyguard. Begin!"

Pirin and Yumi both immediately raised their firearms and began shooting, Yumi's rifle seemed to be firing five-round-bursts of kinetic ammunition, Pirin tried shooting her weapon out of her hands. The girl raised her rifle and it blocked the dust rounds, no good, her weapon was clearly durable, it used bursts though, maybe at point blank range she would have to use a melee weapon, Pirin put his carbine on his back grabbed his batons, and charged at her. Yumi spun, turning her carbine into a greatsword and slashing at Pirin, who barely blocked the attack and was sent stumbling, the girl waited for him to get up, watching him carefully, he dashed at her again, dodging something that she threw at him, and sliding between her legs, before delivering several electrically charged jabs to her ribcage. Yumi slammed her sword into the ground, the shockwave sending Pirin stumbling, she then backed away and he saw what she had thrown earlier, a turret, with a single chain-fed barrel, a blue camera, and a sleek white shell with black paint on it. Pirin began using his glove to disintegrate the bullets, before Yumi's sword caught him in the side, Pirin quickly drew his carbine and shot the turret's box, detonating it's ammunition, before he turned to Yumi. Pirin heard five gunshots and aimed his carbine at her, only his arm didn't move, the bullets had torn Pirin's prosthetic left arm off from the elbow. Pirin looked at his attacker in shock and just as she swung at him, he said

"I forfeit"

Yumi, Ms. Goodwitch, and the rest of the class took a moment to react to what he said, first, Ms. Goodwitch spoke

"Yumi Skyguard wins the match"

The ginger grinned to him and said

"Good round, if you want I can fix up your arm for you"

"It's fine, I'll get a new one"

"You sure? I'm a good engineer, and I'm gonna be repairing my turret after class anyways, what do you say we go down to the forge and..."

"I'm sorry, but I'm not into, well... girls"

"No, nothing like that, I was just offering to try upgrading your arm, it looks like atlas tech, it would be kind of interesting to try working on"

Pirin stared at the mistalian girl in surprise for a moment, before responding

"Sure"

Pirin sat down with his team and noticed that Rachel was on the stage, as was a guy wearing green armor and holding a massive bronze sword.

 **Rachel:**

Rachel looked at her behemoth of an opponent, who stared blankly at her with his sword drawn, this is ridiculous, he's a second year for pete's sake. She then heard Ms. Goodwitch call

"Yatsuhashi Daichi versus Rachel Cross. Begin!"

The guy charged at her, dragging his sword along the floor, before swinging it in a diagonal uppercut at her. His sword met her staff, Rachel tried for a moment to hold him back, but he was just too strong, so she suddenly jumped back, causing Yatsuhashi to stumble at the sudden lack of resistance. Rachel combined her pistol and staff into rifle form and fired a few shots at the second year before separating Faeshift into staff and pistol mode and rolling under Yatsuhashi's horizontal slash, and firing several rounds from her pistol into his back, she checked the auras, his was still high, but she hadn't taken a hit yet, so that was good. Yatsuhashi slammed his sword into the ground creating a wave of aura that Rachel jumped over, she then fired several more pistol rounds that bounced off of Yatsuhashi's sword. Yatsuhashi leapt at her, slamming his sword into the ground, causing a shockwave that unbalanced Rachel, as she righted herself she looked up to see a fist slam clean into her face, knocking her prone. Rachel performed a backflip, righting herself, she then jumped onto Yatsuhashi's sword as he performed a horizontal slash at her, he looked at her in surprise and was met with a kick to the face, Rachel used the kick as a boost, reloaded her pistol in mid-air, before rolling into a crouching stance. Rachel unloaded her pistol's magazine at Yatsuhashi's chest, the bullets didn't seem to have any effect, Rachel looked up at the scoreboard to see that she and Yatsuhashi were both a little over half aura. Rachel internally screamed 'How?! He hit me once! How strong is this guy?!'. Rachel leapt out of the way of a slash, before delivering several quick strikes with her staff, she then jumped back to avoid Yatsuhashi's retaliation, she ran to the opposite end of the arena and combined her weapons into sniper rifle form, and firing all six high calibre bullets into Yatsuhashi, five made direct contact while one punched a hole in his sword. Yatsuhashi retaliated with a wave of aura, followed up by a second one, Rachel jumped over the first strike, but was struck hard by the second one, she heard a ringing in her ears, and then realized that that ringing had partly been the buzzer. She looked up to see that her aura had been entirely depleted with two hits, while Yatsuhashi's was around twenty-five percent. She walked back to her spot and heard Ms. Goodwitch call in the next two students

"Larua Castellon versus Cardin Winchester"

 **Nova:**

Dr. Oobleck rushed around the class asking questions to the students, Nova quite honestly could not care less for history, she wondered if she could transfer to a medicine class, she should probably go ask professor Ozpin after school. Suddenly something landed on her desk, she turned her head to see Rachel waving subtly to her, she then looked back down at the paper, and read it in her head "ask to be excused" Nova raised her hand

"Yes Ms. Algos?"

"Could I please be excused?"

"Very well"

Dr. Oobleck sighed in resignation. Nova walked into the hallway and after a few minutes Rachel walked out.

"So, why did you want me out here?"

"I want to talk to someone whose voice doesn't make me want to die"

"Yeah, umm, bad news, I was kind of planning on switching history for medicine class"

"Cool"

"So… should we go back to class?"

"There's ten minutes left, let's just wait"

"Okay"

The two waited eight minutes, until Rachel and Nova walked into class and sat down, where they began to pack their items up. Nova had just finished putting her stuff away when the bell rang. She and Rachel walked out of the classroom and entered the cafeteria where Tira and Pirin sat, Pirin was hilariously trying to eat mashed potatoes with his non-dominant arm, and Tira was too busy laughing at the spectacle before her to eat. Rachel plopped herself down opposite to Tira, and Nova sat next to her, Nova decided to comment to Pirin

"Need some help over there?"

"Dear god, this is the most aggravating situation ever"

"Nope, that's Dr. Oobleck's class, I mean, why would I need to know when the Schnee Dust Company was first founded"

"Because you specifically use a lot of dust"

Pirin pointed the fact out before returning to his migraine-inducing attempt at eating. This caused Nova to chuckle

"It's not like they screen their customers"

"Touche, but it still helps to know"

"Who cares, I'm going to talk to the guidance counselor after classes today, I'm thinking a medicine class is more my thing"

After several more minutes of such a back and forth conversation, the bell finally rang. As they walked away Pirin called out to Nova

"By the way, about how bad is Dr. Oobleck?"

"Think history used as an interrogation method, oh, and the interrogator is high as a kite"

"Oh good lord"

 **Tira:**

It was fourth period, Tira had more-or-less slept through Dr. Oobleck's history class and was now shuffling into aura management, still groggy. She went to sit down with the rest of her team in the front row, as she got to her seat she heard her teacher exclaim in a thick russian accent

"Hello class! My name is Vasily Kincaid!"

The class visibly recoiled at the teacher's bombastic voice, Mr. Kincaid however did not seem to notice and continued his introduction

"In my class you will learn to use your aura in creative ways as well as unlocking your semblance, now then. For the first day who would like to give a few examples of ways one can use their aura… aside from protection, of course. How about you"

Tira turned to see Pirin who had raised his hand

"Aura can be concentrated into kinetic force, to increase the force of an attack, propel the user, or as I did in the forest, to inhibit a fall"

"Very Good! Anyone else? How about you, Ms. Castellon?"

"An aura can be focused into a wave of energy"

"Yes. well done, now then, onto semblances, would anyone like to show the class their semblance?"

Nova walked down to the main stage

"Alright, for this presentation I will need a volunteer"

Suddenly a hot pink silhouette appeared next to her and Larua appeared

"Well, that's my semblance there"

"Alright, Mr. Kincaid for this display I will need you to attack this girl"

"Attack?"

"My semblance allows me to use my aura to protect another person, with great efficiency too"

"O-okay? I don't know how the parents board would feel about this"

"Just do it, sir"

Mr. Kincaid gulped and fired a wave of white particles that flew towards Larua, the particles all came into contact with a teal bubble around Larua. Nova performed an exaggerated bow

"And that, was my semblance"

The class clapped, Larua and Nova returned to their seats, Mr. Kincaid straightened his glasses and cleared his throat

"Alright, who else would like to show off their semblance, how about you, from earlier?"

He pointed to Pirin again

"With all due respect sir, I still haven't unlocked my semblance"

"Alright, Ms. Cross, how about you?"

"I'd rather not, sir"

"Very well, how about… ummm… Ms. Tanaka? Where is Ms. Tanaka"

Tira froze, she didn't know how to respond, she had just been called to the front of the class, in front of everybody, she couldn't do this, she would…

"Hey, you got this"

Tira turned to her right and saw Nova holding her shoulder, Tira steeled her nerves and cleared her throat before walking down to the stage, hands on her necklace the whole time, as she got to the main floor she put one hand on her sword and dug it into the floor, she felt into the ground and began to stir up the floor in front of her, she heard wood splintering, as well as oohs and aahs. Tira opened her eyes to see that the floor before her had been impaled on an earthen spike, she pulled the spike back into the ground, before bowing to the class and returning to her seat.

 _Author:_

So yeah, another chapter down, I still haven't received a single team suggestion to go with Larua and Yumi, so if someone has any ideas for their two teammates, please tell me.


	13. Chapter 9: Aftermath

**Rachel:**

Rachel was walking through the hall when she heard a high-pitched argument. She slinked around a corner to see Weiss walking away angrily and Ruby was looking upset, Rachel moved to go comfort her when she felt a hand on her shoulder, she almost screamed in surprise, before turning around to see professor Ozpin. He shushed her before walking past her to speak to Ruby. 'How did he sneak up on me? I should have heard him' Rachel thought for about a minute before Ozpin tapped her on the shoulder, snapping her out of her trance, as he began to walk away she remembered a question

"Why, why did you let me into beacon anyways, I'm a wanted criminal and yet you just forged my papers for me"

Ozpin sighed and turned to her

"I've always considered it my role to find those with great experience and to guide them down the correct path, like Ms. Rose back there"

"But, how did you even know you could trust me? It's madness, someone could get hurt!"

"Dear, please, I am more than certain that our teachers and students could handle one rogue huntress in training far better that the authorities could. Now then, if you do not mind, I have… other, businesses to attend to"

And then he walked away, just leaving rachel there, shellshocked, it hadn't been spoken, but there had been a secret threat in between the lines, she could almost hear Ozpin saying it now 'If you do prove to be a problem, I will give you to the police, but only after my students have eliminated any possible chance of your retaliation'. The threat seemed far fetched, but it was hanging in the air, Rachel took a moment to wonder how much he knew, 'he's immune to my semblance, that alone makes him dangerous, is it possible for more people to be immune?'

 **Pirin:**

Yumi placed Pirin's arm on a table and walked to a nearby tool rack

"Do you have the specs for this arm anywhere?"

"Yes, right on here"

Pirin removed his earpiece and handed it to Yumi, she stared at it quizzically for a moment before Pirin took it and expertly removed the USB from the clip and handed it to Yumi who plugged it into one of the computers. Pirin put the clip part of his earpiece back around his ear as Yumi searched for the blueprint of his arm

"Does the blueprint have a title?"

"It's in the 'Hexade' folder"

"Hexade… oh! Here it is, okay, what now"

"The file labelled 'Arm' I'd assume"

Yumi regarded the 3D model of Pirin's arm that was showing on the screen, after a few minutes she grunted and turned to Pirin

"Thing doesn't have any weapons on it, armor's pretty thin too, what gives?"

"It isn't a military prosthetic, it's made to be lightweight, most of the internals are just batteries. I've been told that the arm can go almost a full year without being charged"

"And you never thought to upgrade it? Add some armor? Maybe a gun?"

"Can't, I'm a shite engineer, and my programming skills don't fare much better"

"Okay then, if it's fine with you, I'd like to take a crack at it"

"What's your plan?"

"Well, I might add a weapon some other time, for now first i'm going to fix the motor, then I'll add some armor"

"Okay, is there some way I can help?"

"Yeah, what size does the blueprint say that the motor in the elbow is meant to be?"

"It says size six, atlesian units of course"

"Okay, do we have any of those over here..."

It took Yumi a minute to find the correct motor in the shelves upon shelves of spare parts, but when she found it she jumped with a cry of victory

"YES!"

Pirin couldn't help but smile at the girl's energy, she reminded him that despite what all the students at beacon were learning to do they were still just kids. Yumi broke Pirin out of his thought when she said

"Hey, can you hold those wires right there for me?"

"Affirmative"

Pirin walked over and, with his right hand, held the wires in place as Yumi used a soldering iron to connect the wires to the new motor, before wrapping the open parts of the wires in electrical tape.

"Okay, so that's fixed… I think, put on the arm and tell me if it's working"

Pirin plugged his arm into its socket and moved the elbow joint back and forth a couple of times before turning back to Yumi and saying

"So you were talking about upgrades, what did you have in mind?"

"Well, adding a weapon could be hard, I'm thinking about adding a switchblade into the wrist some time, otherwise for now I recommend adding some armor around the joint to prevent you getting disabled that easily"

Yumi turned to the blueprint on the computer to run a measurement, before opening another tab, Pirin watched as Yumi quickly sketched a 3D model for some piece of armor, she was fast, she obviously had some experience with the program. Yumi finished the model and pushed a few buttons before one of the 3D printers began whirring, it slowly assembled a piece of metal

"What's that suppose to be?"

Asked Pirin

"An elbow guard, it'll protect the joint without hindering the movement of the limb, it'll take something like an hour to finish printing though, and me and my team are going to go out partying in..."

Yumi checked her watch before finishing the thought

"... five minutes"

Pirin nodded and Yumi closed the files on the computer before removing the USB and passing it back to Pirin who put it back into the earpiece. As they waited outside the manufacturing shop for Yumi's team to arrive, while they stood there a thought jumped to Pirin's mind

"Yumi, why do you want to become a huntress?"

"Well, my parents were both grease monkeys like me, so I quickly picked up that hobby, as for the huntress part, I guess it's a way to test my engineering skills, I initially tried to apply for the 'Isida' robotics academy, but they turned me down. So after that I turned to beacon, I had just finished my turret on the day of the qualification challenge, if not for that turret I would have definitely failed"

"So you initially wanted to be an engineer?"

"Yup"

"Well, as both a huntress and an engineer you'd fit all the requirements for 'Hexade'"

"'Hexade'? You mean the company where you got your arm?"

"Yeah, I've been working as one of their part-time weapon testers since I was young, the reason I want to become a huntsman is because they said they'd give me a full-time job as a bodyguard and weapon tester. You'd be able to work as an engineer, bodyguard, or weapon tester if you applied for them"

"Yeah, that sounds nice"

"I'll put in a recommendation for you"

Just then they heard a voice call them from down the hall

"Hey guys! There they are!"

The two of them turned to see the rest of team SLNS (silence) Spice, Larua, and Nerezza running towards them, Yumi waved and the three girls came to a stop right in front of them Larua spoke first

"So? You ready, Yumi?"

"Yup"

"Good"

As they walked away Yumi turned to Pirin

"Tomorrow, same time I'll attach that extra armor piece, sound good?"

"Yup"

Nerezza turned around as well

"Hey Pirin, want to go clubbing with us?"

"Sorry, no, I'm making dinner tonight for my team"

"So? They can come too"

"Maybe next time"

 **Nova:**

Nova walked into the guidance office and stormed straight to the main desk, the receptionist looked up at her and cocked an eyebrow

"Yes?"

He said in a bored tone

"Who can speak to about changing my classes?"

"Ms. Goodwitch's office farthest one down that hall"

The man pointed to Nova's right before returning to playing cookie crush on his computer. Nova walked up to the door and knocked three times, from inside came a voice

"Come in please"

Nova opened the door and saw Ms. Goodwitch filing papers, the teacher looked up at her and spoke

"Why hello Nova, how can I help you?"

"I'd like to transfer classes"

"Which one?"

"Doctor Oobleck's history class"

Ms. Goodwitch nodded and wrote something on a piece of paper,

"And what class would you like to transfer to?"

"Are there any openings for medicine classes?"

Ms. Goodwitch pressed a few keys on her computer and looked at the screen for a moment

"Mr. Decanus is teaching an advanced aura class on using one's aura to heal others, besides that there are no openings"

"I'll take that one"

Ms. Goodwitch nodded again and wrote a few more things on the paper before passing the paper and a pen to Nova

"Sign there"

After Nova signed the paper Ms. Goodwitch began typing on the computer, leaving Nova to wait awkwardly

"Umm, ma'am?"

"I'm switching your class, you're excused now"

Nova performed a small curtsey before turning and leaving. As Nova walked through the hallway she felt her stomach grumble, 'wonder what Pirin's making for dinner? Those eggs we had for breakfast were great'.

 **Tira:**

Tira lay on the couch flipping through the channels on the TV when the rest of her team came in, chatting about dinner, Pirin turned to her

"Okay, Tira, Rachel wants lasagna, Nova wants chicken, I'm trying to explain to them that we need to make something quick for tonight due to a lack of time, any ideas?"

"Check what's in the fridge, or just go down to the cafeteria and buy something to eat"

Pirin walked towards the fridge and leaned in looking at its contents

"Okay, the school apparently supplied us with a frozen pizza for our first day, who wants to have that?"

Rachel immediately piped up

"What flavor?"

"Cheese"

"Okay, I'm game"

"Great, how about you two?"

Tira thought for a moment, cheese pizza would be fine, she wasn't all too hungry anyways, so she shrugged apathetically, nova responded in the affirmative

"Sure"

While Pirin got to work putting the pizza in the oven Tira went back to watching the TV, to see a news story

"There is still yet to be a reappearance from wanted criminal Roman Torchwick, however dust robberies have continued to be perpetrated, and some civilians have begun wondering if Mr. Torchwick is being used as a scapegoat for the white fang"

Tira rolled her eyes and switched the TV off, she heard Rachel ask

"Not a fan, eh?"

"No, I can't believe this the shopkeeper, a huntress, and an anonymous source all said the same thing, and yet people still always say the same thing 'Radical faunus!'. It drives me nuts"

Rachel nodded with a forlorn gaze

"Yeah, it sucks"

They sat for a moment before Pirin's voice drew their attention

"Alright everybody, time to eat!"

They sat down at the table, not a moment after they had begun eating however, Nova asked a question

"So Pirin, what did you do with Yumi?"

"She fixed my arm, she fixed her turret, she's quite an impressive engineer"

"Is that all you did?"

Nova spoke with a tone in her voice that gave Pirin a good idea what she was implying

"Nothing like that Nova, we talked, that is all"

"Oh, so it was a date?"

"NO!"

Pirin was getting quite annoyed, he didn't seem to understand that she was doing it on purpose though, Tira chuckled a bit as Pirin explained to Nova why his time spent with Yumi didn't count as a date. The next hour passed by quickly, before Tira knew it she was lying in her bed drifting off to sleep, it hadn't been the worst first day.

 _Author:_

So yeah, I created the two extra teammates for Larua and Yumi, because I didn't receive a single suggestion, I feel like you guys are ignoring me, either way, tell me if you have any ideas, questions, or theories


	14. Chapter 10: Saturday

**Rachel:**

Rachel lay in her bed staring up at the ceiling boredly, it had been about a week since the first day, and rachel was honestly getting tired of the daily grind, every school day it was the exact same schedule, wake up, lie in bed for an hour while pirin prepared breakfast, she found it strange that he wasn't tired considering that he always was awake by the time she got up at 6. Back to the problem of boredom though, the school's lack of homework generally made her bored, although Nova said it was just because the classes they were in didn't usually give homework, apparently the only teacher she had who gave homework was Oobleck, and that problem was solved with just a few searches and then 'poof' she could remember everything of importance. Nova however was passing her advanced aura class with flying colours, Rachel had considered taking another class instead of Port's Grimm studies as she had no interest in listening to a some fatass ramble on about successes that likely never even happened. However she couldn't find any classes that sounded interesting. Suddenly something drew Rachel's attention, there was talking outside, Nova and Tira were talking in the dining room, Rachel checked the time to see that it was 6:30 AM, that made no sense, the only time they were up this early was on a… weekend. Rachel looked at her clock to see that it was saturday, She jumped out of her bed and began to put on her clothes and then burst out of her room. Everyone looked at her for a moment before Pirin went back to the food, Tira and Nova went back to talking about their favourite semblances. Rachel walked out into the hall and saw Jaune walking through the hallway

"Hey Jaune, what's up?"

He turned to her with a tired expression and sighed

"Good enough"

Lying, Rachel had been keeping in touch with team JNPR since the first day, and she knew Jaune had not been like this the day prior

"Really?"

"I'm fine"

"Are you su..."

"I said I'm fine!"

Jaune shouted at her, she stumbled back in shock as he stormed off down the hallway, Rachel looked back towards the JNPR doorway and considered asking them about it, she decided though that if Jaune didn't want to talk about it, then she would just leave it. She went back to the RPNT dorm. As she opened the door she heard Pirin say

"You're back just in time for breakfast, how many pancakes do you want? Nova, please go get Rachel a plate"

Rachel walked into the dining room as Nova set a plate down at her seat

"I… I'll start with two pancakes"

"Aye"

The team ate in silence for a few minutes before Pirin spoke

"so how's everyone planning to spend their first weekend at beacon?"

Nova responded first

"Today I'm gonna check out the town, I haven't seen it yet, tonight I plan to go clubbing, tomorrow I'm thinking we could all sit around and Play video games together"

Rachel responded to Nova's suggestion

"Yeah, a games night sounds fun"

Tira was next

"I think I'll go explore with Nova, not the clubbing part though"

Rachel piped back in

"How about you, Pirin?"

"I'm going to just sit around, i don't especially feel like doing anything today, I'm up for a games night tomorrow though"

Rachel returned her attention to her pancakes

 **Pirin:**

Pirin was sitting on the couch, Tira and Nova had left about an hour ago and he was lying on the couch watching the TV, they were doing an expose on an atlas train that had been hijacked the night prior, the soldiers had all been killed and the cargo, which the atlas military was keeping classified, was stolen

"Idiots"

Pirin muttered to himself. Just then Rachel walked in front of him, drawing his attention away from the expose, he raised an eyebrow

"Yes, Rachel?"

"I was thinking, while the other two are out, we could get a game for tomorrow, seeing as the school stupidly provided us with a console but no games"

"What game?"

"Want to go check what they have?"

"Why the hell not, that news story was killing my faith in society anyways"

So the two walked out the door and down to the airstrip, where they took a bullhead into town. The a buzzer made a beeping noise as Pirin and Rachel walked into the BE Games, where Rachel said

"So I'm thinking we get a first-person-shooter, what do you think?"

"Sounds good, how about Double-Clip?"

"Which one's that?"

"New game, supports split screen play, apparently the game has really good multiplayer"

"Sure"

It took the two about a minute to find the game, at which point both grabbed a copy, Pirin stopped for a moment and spoke

"Oh, okay, I'll put this one back"

"No, how about we get two and play with team RWBY"

"We can do that?"

"Yeah, it's called a Lan party"

"Okay I guess"

They walked to the counter and put the two copies on the scanner, the screen beeped requesting payment

"So who's paying?"

"I'll do it"

Pirin pulled out his gold and black card and swiped it across the machine, the machine beeped and 'Accepted' appeared across the screen in green text. Rachel put the boxes in one of the plastic bags and the two walked out the door.

 **Tira:**

"Excuse me sir, do you know where I can find Sevusiov?"

"Yes, just go down that street and make a right turn at the second road, you can't miss it"

"Thank you"

Nova turned back to Tira who had been standing back watching, the two of them then proceeded to head down the street. as the two of them walked into the restaurant the owner eyed Tira cautiously. Tira looked at the man, he made her feel nervous, she nodded to Nova who walked to the counter and spoke

"Hello there, I'd like a large pepperoni and two Koces please"

The man nodded and began typing into the Keypad, Nova walked over to a table and Tira followed her. A matter of minutes later their Pizza arrived at their table, Nova split it into two halves and they began eating. Part Way through the meal Nova began to talk before taking a moment to swallow

"So, want to talk about something?"

"Like what"

"I dunno, you're not very chatty, all I honestly know about you is what you look like and that you're a kick-ass fighter"

"Well, I'm from the lower class of Mistral, besides that there's not much to talk about"

"Neat"

"You?"

"Huh?"

"I don't know much about you either"

"Well, I've lived outside the walls my whole life, it was always just me and the guys doing jobs for money, we would go from town to town, I think that the word Mark used was 'a team of desperados'"

"Where are the guys?"

"Went off to Vacuo, we do video calls from time to time, they're going to be here for the Vytal festival"

The two of them thought for a moment before just returning to their food, not being able to come up with anything else to talk about. Several minutes later once they had finished their food Nova stood up from her seat and began to walk out, Tira followed in tow. she was following Nova when she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder, Tira turned around to see a man with black hair glaring at her

"Y-yes?"

"What are you doing here"

"Do I... know you?"

The man suddenly turned angry and pushed her to the ground

"Don't play coy with me you fucking animal! You came walking into this neighborhood like you had some right to be here! Remnant would be fucking perfect without animals like you!"

Tira couldn't respond, she simply curled up and cried, as the man continued his hate speech

"...ister was killed by one of you mutts! Get out of my sight... AAUGH!"

Hearing a cry of pain Tira looked up to see the man lying splayed on his back with a smoking mark on his chest, he looked at her with sheer terror, but he wasn't looking at her, Tira turned her head to see Nova holding a smoking red crystal. Nova helped Tira up before walking over to the man and kicking him unconscious, as the two walked away Tira was sure to stay close to Nova, she had been the victim of hate back in Mistral, but she'd always heard Vale described as some kind of better place where such racism didn't exist, this scene had shocked her back to reality. She then heard Nova talk

"Outside the walls faunus were treated equally, some villagers we spoke to even considered the faunus to be more evolved, I wonder what's different in the cities"

Tira considered the question, faunus in the cities were always associated with the white fang, perhaps there was less of a white fang presence where Nova had been, hell, Nova didn't even seem to know anything about the white fang. After another hour of looking at tourist sites Tira got bored

"Hey, it's getting late, I'm headed back to the school, okay?"

"Sure thing, see you when I get back"

 **Nova:**

Tira had left back at 5, it was now 8 and Nova was dancing in a club, she had no idea what the place was called even, although that may have been because she was drunk. She pumped her hands in rhythm to the music, something by paft dunk, a pair of Atlesian DJs that had been gaining popularity lately, she hummed along to the song. After a few more minutes of dancing Nova walked over to the bar and sat at one of the stools, the bartender, a tall man with dark hair and a goatee was currently serving one of the other customers, she watched him give a shot to the man, at which point Nova cleared her throat drawing his attention to her

"I'll have a sake bomb please"

The man looked at her and cocked an eyebrow

"How old are you?"

Nova grunted and pulled a few bills out of her wallet, before sliding them to the bartender and gesturing for him to keep quiet, he counted the money, slid it into his pocket, and poured her drink for her. Nova took the glass and swivelled her chair, giving herself a view of the dance floor, where she began sizing up people while sipping her drink, there were a few buff looking men standing off to the side, not her type, there was a guy about her age sitting next to some girls who were talking loudly, the man looked less than excited to be in the club, must have been more of an introvert. Nova heard shouting and saw two girls, one dressed in red and the other in white dragging a man up to the bar, once they had finished carrying the man the barkeeper spoke

"What did he do?"

The girls responded with one beginning the sentence and the other finishing it

"Got into an argument with a woman"

"Pulled a gun on her"

The bartender looked at the man and then returned his attention to the two girls

"Throw him out"

Nova watched as the two girls dragged the man out the front door before returning to their spots at the edge of the dance floor Nova looked to the bartender and asked

"Who the hell are those two?"

"Security, Melanie and Miltia may be a bit odd, but they're quite honestly the only decent fighters here"

Nova nodded absentmindedly and returned to her drink, just then she felt a hand on her shoulder, she looked to see a guy with red hair sitting down next to her, he wore a t-shirt and jeans, casual wear, probably a civilian, he spoke first

"Hi there, what's your name? I'm Kris"

The guy was confident, he probably came to the club to pick up chicks all the time

"I'm Nova"

"Nova, nice name"

"Thanks"

"So, I haven't seen you around here before, you new?"

"Yeah, I'm a first year at beacon"

"Oh? How old are you?"

"Seventeen"

"Wow, same age"

"So why do you come here?"

"Mainly just a good time, I get bored all the time"

"Oh, neat"

Nova and Kris spent another hour or so talking until they left the club, they walked home together, and then once they got to Kris's apartment he turned to her

"You want to come in?"

"Sure, we've got some time to talk, so what's the worst that could happen"

The two stayed for another several hours, and eventually Nova left the apartment a wild grin plastered across her face.

 _Author:_

So yeah, we're now getting into the actual teen rated content, expect suggestive topics and graphic violence from time to time, for something of a comparable maturity rating, take the gone series by Michael Grant


	15. Chapter 11: Sunday

**Rachel:**

Team RPNT was currently playing a round of Double Clip against team RWBY, Rachel was playing the vanguard class and tanking hits from the recon who she assumed was Ruby, Pirin was playing fire support, Nova was a medic, and Tira was a heavy weapons expert, on team RWBY there was an ECM, a recon, a vanguard, and an engineer. The two teams had been taking turns as the defending and attacking teams for the last few hours and it was now about Noon

"PIRIN! Use an orbital strike on their escort vehicle"

"It's on cooldown!"

"Tira? How about you?"

"Respawning"

"Dammit"

Rachel hung her head in defeat as a cutscene played showing the pirate escort vehicle fire a torpedo and destroyed the facility they had tried to defend. Rachel began typing a message into the chat,

[N00B: Want to go out for lunch?]

[RedWolf: Sure, why not]

"Oh, so the recon was Ruby"

Nova commented on this revelation with her odd sarcastic/upbeat tone of voice that nobody could pin an emotion on. The team powered down their console before walking into the hallway to meet with team RWBY. Along the walk Rachel walked up to Ruby and the two began chatting

"So, you're a hell of a shot"

"Yeah, I already know how to account for velocity and bullet drop, so that was nothing by comparison, who was trying to kill infantry with the breach laser?"

"Tira, how does that thing even work anyways?"

"If you shoot a vehicle it will burn infantry around the vehicle killing them really fast, it also does a lot of damage to vehicles"

"Oh, how about the pulsar projector? I was using it on my vanguard and i couldn't seem to hit anything"

"It has a slow velocity, but the projectiles damage all enemies in a large area around them, spam-fire it down choke points for massive area denial"

"How do you know so much about this?"

"It's a fun game series, I've been playing Double Clip since i was young"

"How many games are their?"

"Double Clip, now known as Double Clip: Original. Double Clip: Heroes, the RTS that had minimal success. Double Clip: Expansion, the game that capitalized on the lore. And the one you got was the newest, Double Clip: Evolution, it is currently the most popular due to having a good mix of story and combat"

"Wow"

"Yeah, It's a big series"

 **Pirin:**

Pirin was reading in the restaurant while the rest of his team ordered, he had told them to surprise him, '...She whipped underneath his swing, adrenaline flooding out the pain in her leg as she drove her sword through Zhaud's back. The larger man stood paralyzed for a moment before she pulled her sword out of him, casting him to the ground..."'

"What's that?"

Pirin looked up to see Blake eying his book with an amused expression

"I'm reading the first book in the Godless series, what does it look like?"

"You know we need to have finished that by tomorrow for book club, right?"

"Hey hey hey. I've been having trouble finding time to read, at least I'm almost done"

"Oh yeah, have you gotten to the part where Melissa kills general Zhaud yet?"

"You were *this* close to spoiler territory right there, I had just finished that scene"

Blake laughed, at this and took a moment to catch her breath

"Yeah, the second book is awesome, the author is great at making sympathetic villains, I can't wait for the third book to come out so I can see what becomes of Kane"

"Kane?"

"Oh right, spoilers for the second book"

"Don't tell me, I haven't even picked it up yet"

Just then their conversation was cut off by Nova placing a penne with alfredo in front of Pirin, who eyed the dish hungrily, Nova then placed a garlic bread stuffed with cheese for herself, spaghetti for Tira, and a ceasar salad for Rachel. Team RWBY brought their food to the table next, Yang had ordered chicken, Blake had a tuna fillet, Weiss ordered a salad, and Ruby just got cookies. As the eight of them began eating Pirin's scroll rang

"I'll take that, just start without me"

As he looked down at the scroll he read the message, 'New equipment in need of advertisement footage, when are you available?', Pirin quickly typed a response, 'I'm with my team today, can we try for next weekend?', a few moments later a response appeared, 'Roger that, also, how's beacon?' 'Good, we'll talk about it on saturday'. Pirin finally placed his scroll down and returned his attention back to his pasta.

 **Nova:**

After lunch the two teams had returned to their dorms to continue playing, the only difference was that Rachel had doubled down on planning this time

"Okay, so if Ruby plays recon again we need someone to counter her, any suggestions?"

"The vanguard class is generally good for that due to its shield generator and concussion grenade"

"Okay, so I'll focus on countering Ruby, who can go after their engineer?"

Nova's hand shot up, she had seen what the ECM could do and it was kick-ass, it had EMP grenades, a hacking device, and a cloaking device. It was awesome and she wanted to do it

"Dibs"

"Okay, we need a counter to their ECM, Pirin? What counters ECM?"

"Well i'd assume that the recon's motion sensors and whatnot could disable invisibility, the problem is that an ECM can hack deployables, the two can effectively cancel eachother out"

"That doesn't help"

"We could probably just keep an eye out"

"Fine, and how do we counter a vanguard?"

"The vanguard has a shield that can take hits for it, and it's concussion grenade and sword it is likely best at point blank range, a soldier, fire support, or heavy weapons expert could probably break the shield from a safe distance"

"Okay, Tira, can you play one of the three?"

"I'll go soldier, apparently it can resupply all it's ammo and health once per minute"

"Good"

Rachel typed into her controller

[N00B: You ready?]

[RedWolf: Yup]

As the game countdown began the players all chose their classes, Nova selected the ECM and was faced with four weapon categories to choose, dmrs, smgs, shotguns, and carbines, she chose smgs as she couldn't aim for shit. Three options popped up:

-Manticore: a fast firing smg with a small magazine and short range

-Cerberus: an smg with longer range at the cost of damage potential

-Banshee: a three round burst smg with a heating mechanic as opposed to ammunition

Nova chose the Manticore for the sake of actually being able to hit something, it was the same option she had used previously when playing medic and she knew that it was effective. The screen flashed to her abilities, saboteur kit was a permanent and couldn't be switched, as for her selectable slot she could choose from a hologram projector, two EMP grenades, a remote controlled drone that could self destruct to EMP nearby deployables, and two smoke grenades, Nova took the smoke grenades and waited for her allies to be ready, she saw Pirin selecting the healing station for medic, it was a good option, but she had preferred the devices that gave allies temporary shields, mainly because it reminded her of her semblance. '8/8 players ready' read the screen, followed by '3' '2' '1' 'GO!'. Over the speakers she heard the allegiance commander speak the same line he always said at the beginning of this mission

"The pirates have bolted down this bunker, use the EV to bust a hole in their defences and then steal the files in the control room"

 **Tira:**

Tira had selected soldier, she was using the Drake, a fully automatic shotgun capable of killing in a few seconds, it couldn't kill with one shot like the pump-action options, but it was a lot more capable against groups or if you missed the first shot, as for her ability she had selected the soldier's 'Vampirism' skill, which would automatically activate her resupply skill for free every time she got a kill. As the game began she ran for the EV, which she hid behind as the enemies fired a storm of plasma at them, she switched from her shotgun to a high accuracy pistol and began firing at the enemy vanguard, who used it's shield generator to block the bullets before the pirate recon shot her in the head with a sniper rifle

"They've got the place camped, what do we do?"

"I'll tank, Nova, sneak up on the engineer, Pirin, Tira, focus on repairing the EV"

Nova charged forwards, spamming her shotgun at the enemy engineer and vanguard, who both ducked behind cover, only for the flash of an EMP grenade to be seen and two death messages appear in the top right corner

"Well done Nova"

Tira then saw her screen flash with an EMP warning, she saw the enemy ECM shoot at her, before a few rounds from Pirin's dmr killed the ECM, he ran past her and began repairing the EV, and Tira covered his back. A message appeared over their HUDs and played over the speakers

"Well done boys, EV is up, get it to the enemy warehouse and blow down the door"

Tira got into the gunner's seat of the EV while Pirin took control of the driver's seat, Tira bursted down the enemy recon and engineer before she got a 'Hack detected!' warning and the turret stopped firing, before Tira could react she was killed by several bolts of plasma. They all kept playing as the push and pull of the battle entertained them for the rest of the sunday.

 _Author:_

Hi, sorry about the recent lack of uploads, I've been having trouble finding time to write, this chapter takes place right around when Cardin first got Jaune under his thumb, this is also the last chapter that i'm going to write which takes place in volume one, and if anyone has ideas for plot points that I could use around the time of the dance, I'm very much in need of inspiration


	16. Chapter 12: Just Another Day

**Rachel:**

Rachel and the rest of team RPNT scrambled out of the cafeteria just as a watermelon exploded, caking the windows in red juice. Nova stared at the window with a shocked expression

"Holy shit"

Rachel followed up Nova's statement with a question

"Who even started that?"

Pirin answered with his usual crisp formality

"RWBY and JNPR, Nora was chucking food at Yang, Yang understandably got angry when tomato juice got in her hair, the two teams then proceeded to have a full-blown food fight"

Rachel wiped some grape-scented liquid that she hoped was soda out of her hair, ever so close to her faunus ear, Rachel pushed the thought out of her mind and walked away. It took Rachel a moment to realize that she had no idea where she was headed, she looked around to see that the rest of her team had all headed in separate directions, she also saw Ozpin and Ms. Goodwitch walking toward the cafeteria, and looking less than pleased. Rachel decided to get out immediately as she had heard stories and had no intention of witnessing 'Iron Glynda'. Rachel looked back as she walked and bumped into somebody

"Oh! Sorry!"

Rachel and the stranger spoke at the same time and Rachel looked to whoever had spoken, before her was an adorable brown haired rabbit faunus, Rachel eyed the girl for a moment before holding out her hand

"Hi there, sorry about walking into you, my name's Rachel"

The girl slowly reached out and shook Rachel's hand before responding with a chipper tone

"I'm Velvet"

"Cool, did you see the mess in the cafeteria"

"You mean the food fight?"

"Yeah"

"My team and I have been through this a few times, the moment we saw the first milk carton fly we buggered out"

"Which team are you on?"

"CFVY"

"Oh cool, you're second-years, aren't you?"

"Yup"

The two later headed to the library to study, at one point Velvet looked up from her book to talk to Rachel

"Just wondering, most people don't like faunus, it took my team a while to accept me, why is it that you didn't even bat an eye at me being a faunus"

Without responding Rachel gestured to her hidden hair clips and shot velvet a wink, after a moment the girl's face lit up with realization

"Cat ears, I know what it's like to be hated for being a faunus, whenever I see a faunus who willingly shows their heritage I always reach out to 're braver than me, that's why"

 **Pirin:**

A few hours after the food fight Pirin walked into a grey and yellow room, the receptionist raised an eyebrow quizzically, to which Pirin said

"I'm here for a weapons test, ask Dr. Demini"

The receptionist typed a few keys into her computer causing the intercom to beep to life

"Conrad, there's someone to see you about a weapons test"

Across the intercom came a heavily accented voice

"Ah, that must be Pirin, let him into test site B"

The receptionist turned off the intercom and said

"Down that hallway, massive hangar doors with a 'B' on them"

"Thank you"

Pirin walked up to the hangar doors and knocked with his prosthetic arm, after a moment of the sound of metal on metal the doors began to open and Pirin walked through. He was met by a man wearing a long grey lab coat with yellow markings

"Hello Conrad, what have we to test today?"

"Well, I'm sure you remember our dust battery technology"

"How couldn't I?"

"We've designed a system that can take dust energy out of mid-air, from say, a projectile"

"And then redirect it?"

"Correct, today you will be using only this shield, your job will be to block enemy attacks and redirect the rounds at the enemy"

"Roger that"

"Excellent, go over to Mina, she will help you synchronize the device with your BatNet system"

Pirin made a curt nod and walked into the corner where Conrad's daughter, Mina, was sitting at a chair in front of a computer. As Pirin sat down she pointed towards the weapons rack

"Just grab one, it should sync like most of our equipment"

Pirin tapped the button on his earpiece causing the HUD to appear before his eye, he then grabbed a gauntlet off of the rack and put it on his right hand

"Synchronize hardware"

The HUD blinked and a note appeared for him

'Please press the synchronize button on whatever piece of HEXADE hardware you would like to use'

Pirin opened the control hatch on the gauntlet and pushed the power button before pressing the synchronize button, when he did so a prompt flashed on his HUD

'Device: HEXADE D.D.R.S. (Dust Defence and Redirection System)

Item code: Y2K18

Currently synced to: N/A

-are you sure you want to synchronize this HEXADE device to your BatNet system? This will overwrite any previous synchronization

{Yes}

{No}'

"Yes"

Another notice appeared on Pirin's HUD 'You have never used this type of equipment before, please give your BatNet system a moment to install user settings'

Pirin spent the next few minutes setting up his device before he called to Demini

"I'm Ready"

"Excellent, walk into the training ground"

Pirin left the hangar and walked into an artificial forest, as he left the hangar a wall closed behind him and changed color to fit the forest theme, over the PA Pirin heard Dr. Demini say

"Cameras: functional. Equipment: functional. Atlesian knights: functional. Weather: nice and breezy"

Pirin chuckled at the doctor's light-hearted humor and raised the gauntlet, a quick signal to his neural implants and the circular shield had expanded out of the gauntlet. And Pirin slowly stalked his way into the forest.

 **Nova:**

Nova was sitting on the couch in the RPNT dorm waiting for the washing machine to finish getting the tomato juice off of her dress, just then the door opened and Pirin walked in, Nova practically screamed in surprise as her hands flew up to cover her undergarments. Pirin just chuckled and rolled his eyes

"Don't worry, I won't stare"

"Knock next time"

"Yes, make an inconvenient alteration to my lifestyle to help prevent a one-time incident from happening again"

Nova winced at Pirin's cutting sarcasm, she curled up her legs and put one hand over her chest before reaching for a blanket to cover herself with. Pirin remained oblivious to all of this as he checked the calendar, he then called out

"Hey Nova, I'm going to go into town, okay?"

"Where are you going?"

"Work"

"Wait, you have a job?"

"Yes"

"Where"

"Hexade armory"

"Wow, what do you do there?"

"Weapons testing"

Nova was shocked, Pirin had always seemed to carry himself like an older person, but she just hadn't imagined that his busy demeanor had been for any actual reason, as she continued to mull over this discovery Pirin left the dorm unbeknownst to her.

 **Tira:**

Tira and Larua were walking through a weapon store, Larua was looking at a dust powered pistol

"Do you think this is a good look for me?"

"Try getting it in black and mauve, it'll look better on you that way"

Larua nodded, while she looked around for a clerk Tira noticed an interesting weapon on one of the shelves

"Hey Larua, check this out, It's a staff made of a conductive metal that allows aura to pass through efficiently, it also holds dust for augmenting aura bolts"

"Wow, looks high end"

Larua took a staff and turned to the clerk she had been talking to

"How much is this?"

"1000 lien ma'am"

Larua turned back to Tira and asked

"Think it's worth it?"

"Get it in your colors, then yeah it is perfect"

Larua turned back to the clerk and said

"I'll get it"

"Excellent choice"

As the two walked out of the store Larua weighed the staff in her hand, it was a long metal stick with a dust chamber on the end, around the chamber were several blades that could be used for a melee weapon. Tira turned back to Larua and asked

"Want to go out for lunch?"

"Maybe in a bit, I'm gonna go buy some paint for this bad boy, I'm thinking black with gold highlights, and then I'll store some kind of dust that gives off a nice pink glow"

"Sounds good"

The next place on their path was a store named 'Everybody deyes' which the two girls gave a quick laugh at, as they walked into the store Larua quickly grabbed two cans of paint, walked up to the cashier, and purchased them, without fuss nor muss. After an hour of searching for a good restaurant the two girls were picking out food at an all-you-can-eat Mistallian buffet

"Any food you recommend?"

"Try the maki rolls"

"Cool, thanks"

They sat back down at their table and began eating, Tira noticed that Larua was poking at her wasabi and chuckled

"Yeah, it is spicy, but it's good"

Larua put a bit of wasabi on one of her maki rolls and put it in her mouth, her eyes actively widened in surprise at the spice of the wasabi, causing Tira to stifle a giggle

 **Pirin:**

A beam of energy cut through the atlesian knights, disabling all three of them, Pirin then turned around and used the shield to block several bolts of electric dust from some other atlesian knights. Pirin checked his HUD seeing that the shield was currently at 50% battery capacity, it could charge pretty quickly, but the energy would easily burn out, so he had to be careful. Pirin performed a spin on his heel firing the beam in a 360 degree arc, cutting all the enemies around him down, he then looked around checking for opposition, he then reopened his HUD, all atlesian knights were dispatched, there was however something he didn't recognize, something referred to as a 'Hexade 'Mantis' assault droid'. Pirin figured that Conrad was using this as an opportunity to test the AI of an experimental machine. Suddenly he noticed the grass waving, how was the grass waving, there was no artificial wind in a test site, Pirin used his HUD to scan the area. A warning appeared on his HUD along with the outline of something large, '!Camouflage detected!', The outline charged towards him and Pirin raised his shield and entered a crouching stance, he felt a heavy blow glance off of the shield and saw the ground next to him explode where a blade impacted. Pirin rolled back and fired a beam from his shield, the beam hit the outline head on, disrupting the camouflage of the drone. Suddenly Pirin's HUD beeped and another prompt appeared '!Energy low!'. The 'Mantis' swung one of it's hook-shaped blades at Pirin which he blocked with the shield, Pirin kept his shield raised and waited for the 'Mantis' to fire it's dust weapons, he could tell that it had dust weapons as he could see dust batteries wired up to its shoulder mounted cannons. It recognized that Pirin's shield could redirect dust weapons, it was being careful not to give him ammunition, this was a high-quality AI, Pirin had to improvise. He dodged several slashes from its blades before retreating behind a rock, he had to improvise, Hexade dust batteries could store aura as well as dust energy, he raised his left hand to the shield and let his aura run from the metal arm to the shield. The HUD showed the battery charging up, Pirin grinned and rushed the droid, he slid under its slash before rolling and then spinning, firing the beam at the droid's legs, cutting them off. Now immobilized the droid began using it's dust cannons, Pirin used his shield to block every shot, before using the beam to precisely take out the cannons and arms. Pirin grinned as he walked up to the camera of the drone as it looked up at him, the shield collapsed back into the gauntlet as Pirin raised his right arm and punched the camera in. After the test Pirin passed the shield back to Conrad who said

"No, no, It's field ready, we just needed footage for advertisement, you can hold onto the shield"

Pirin nodded and walked out of the hangar, he turned off his BatNet system and put the gauntlet in his bag. As Pirin left the building he grinned, these jobs always gave him a nice buzz, he wondered if huntsman jobs would be this invigorating.

 _Author:_

So yeah, no comment today, I'm kinda wondering if anyone is actually paying attention, it has been WEEKS since somebody commented, so I'm starting to feel like nobody is actually reading


	17. Chapter 13: No Title Selected

**Rachel:**

It was around 8 when Pirin got back, as he walked towards his room Rachel stepped into his path, he had just gone without telling anybody where he was going

"Where were you?"

"What do you mean? I told Nova I was going to do a job"

Rachel wheeled on Nova who gave a shrug

"Forgot"

While Rachel took a moment to regret her existence Pirin pushed past her into his room. Rachel then noticed that Pirin had a cargo bag with him and decided to take a break from helping Tira with dinner, so she decided to ask

"What's in the bag?"

Pirin looked up at her, halfway through unzipping the bag open

"Newest piece of equipment"

"What is it?"

"Gauntlet expands into a shield that can absorb and redirect dust and aura"

Pirin removed the gauntlet from his bag before holding it up to his weapons rack, a grid of holes where he could attach pegs to stand up weapons. He pressed a button on the gauntlet causing the shield to expand, he then pulled three pegs out of a bag and used them to hold the shield in place. Rachel looked at the other items on the rack, an older version of Pirin's electro-gauntlet-thingy, she didn't know what the difference between the old one and the new one was. Another item on the rack was a tomahawk, it was made out of aura conductive materials and had a dust magazine built into the handle. There were a few other weapons, but Rachel then returned her attention to Pirin, as he finished rigging up the pegs he put his normal gauntlet back on. Rachel suddenly found herself paying precise attention to Pirin's prosthetic arm, she had never bothered to ask about the prosthetic, it just looked so normal, no weapons built in, it seemed more like a normal body part than what she normally imagined when she thought of a prosthetic

"I never actually asked about this, what happened to your left arm? You don't use a weaponized prosthetic so I wouldn't think that you lost it in a fight"

Pirin's face subtly lit up before returning to his usual neutral expression

"You're correct about that prediction, I was born with a birth defect, My left arm had an incorrectly formed circulation system and was already decayed by the time I was born, it was amputated within the first hour"

Rachel was surprised, when she first saw Pirin's prosthetic arm she thought it was some sort of battle injury, it was probably because of the militaristic air that Pirin carried with him. Just then Tira called her name

"Rachel! Can I have help with the sausages?"

"Coming!"

She then quickly turned to Pirin

"By the way, what are you getting Tira?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's Tira's birthday tomorrow, what are you getting her?"

"Umm… I'll think about it"

Rachel nodded and walked into the kitchen to help Tira

 **Pirin:**

As Rachel left his room Pirin looked at the weapon rack, he wondered how Tira could do with a shield, her sword was able to be used with one hand or two, so she could use the sword with a shield, especially if the shield could collapse into a gauntlet. He looked at the gauntlet on his weapon rack, best case scenario: Tira, someone who was already a powerhouse would be even more effective, worst case scenario: she now had a shield. Pirin smiled, a good birthday present planned.

 **Nova:**

After being questioned about where Pirin had been Nova returned her attention to her book, yes, a book, it had nice pictures. She honestly had forgotten where Pirin was. As Rachel walked into Pirin's room Nova returned to her book, 'X-Ray and Vav' Jaune had recommended it. It was about two idiotic superheroes in some abstract sounding world called earth, apparently there were no auras or semblances there, it sounded weird. Nova watched as Rachel left Pirin's room and went to help Tira with dinner.

 **Tira:**

"Rachel! Can I have help with the sausages?"

Tira called out to her teammate while she hurriedly flipped over the sausages in the oven

"Coming!"

It took Rachel another thirty seconds or so before she came over and took the tongs from Tira, with great dexterity she flipped over each sausage with precise movements, before closing the oven door. Rachel then turned to Tira

"Sooo… your birthday's coming up,i'm thinking that tomorrow we hold a little birthday party for you after classes"

"Rachel, it's a kind gesture but you know how I feel being the center of attention"

"No no, don't worry, it's just going to be the four of us"

"O-okay..."

"Great! Now then, how about you set the table"

Tira nodded before moving to set the table, her stomach practically an airport for butterflies.

 _Author:_

Hey there, really sorry about the short chapter, I promise the next one will be longer, plus it's going to be Tira's birthday! Yay! Either way, I got a question a while back about if Pirin was going to be paired with anybody, I'm not planning on doing so as I'll need to make him a partner, this will require inspiration as it will feel forced unless Pirin's partner is based on a real person, yes, all OCs have some real-world counterparts/inspiration. So to clarify, Pirin is gay. By the way, if anyone has an idea for the title of this chapter tell me and I will probably update it.


	18. Chapter 14: Birthday

**Pirin:**

Pirin walked into the equipment section of the mall and went to looking around for a HUD system. 'Swords: Tira already has one. Knives: no, for dust's sake where is the Hexade isle?' Pirin noticed a clerk nearby and walked over to him

"Excuse me sir, where can I find Hexade equipment"

"Yeah, three isles over that way"

The man said whilst pointing to Pirin's right

"Thank you"

With that Pirin headed down the isles until he found the correct one, as he stared at all the equipment he recalled devices he had tested 'PDS Gauntlet, DDRS, dust batons, dust carbine' Pirin finally saw the HUD earpiece and grabbed one before heading to the cashiers. As he walked up to the counter the cashier looked at him

"That will be 500 lien please"

"Of course, and, could I have it gift wrapped please? It's for a friend"

The cashier nodded, putting the money into the register and putting the HUD into a gift bag which she then handed back to Pirin

"Would you like a receipt?"

"Yes please"

After Pirin left the store he checked the list in his pocket, 'let's see, black paint for the shield, and then groceries.'

 **Tira:**

"Happy birthday!"

The other three members of team RPNT called out to Tira just as she walked in

"Aww, thanks guys"

Tira looked around the room, there were balloons, a cake, and it seemed like Nova had taken a crack at some sort of dust sparklers, the room looked great. Rachel spoke next

"So, you wanna do presents first? Or cake?"

"Let's do cake"

Pirin spoke next

"Thank you!"

As they sat down Pirin cut the cake into eight pieces and handed one to each member, leaving four on the plate. As Tira put a piece of the cake into her mouth she was flooded with a delicious blend of chocolate cake and caramel filling, Pirin was an amazing cook. As they finished the cake Rachel stood up

"Alright, time for presents, Pirin, want to go first?"

Pirin nodded and went to his room before coming out a moment later with a bag, he pulled out a gauntlet that had been painted black and a earpiece that had also been painted black

"This gauntlet can turn into a shield, which can then redirect dust and aura based attacks, the earpiece links up to the gauntlet and allows you to activate and deactivate it with a verbal command. If you want I can show you how to use it"

"Neat think we could train after classes?"

"sure"

Rachel stood up next

"Alright, so me and Nova are getting you a shared present, since the dance is coming up soon we are taking you out for a dress fitting"

Tira groaned lightly at the thought of wearing a dress in front of everybody at the dance

"Really?"

Nova jumped in then

"Come on! It'll be fun!"

"Ugh… fine, but I have the right to veto any dress that I find too revealing"

Nova was about to reply when Rachel jumped in

"Sounds good"

Tira nodded

"Now then, can I have more of that cake?"

 **Rachel:**

"How's this look?"

Tira eyed the sleeveless black V-neck dress with a short skirt

"I'll pass, V-necks don't work on me"

Rachel thought to herself 'What does she mean? Why would she have a problem with V-necks...' Rachel's eyes lowered to Tira's chest and her eyes widened before she quietly put the dress back on the hanger. The door to the changeroom opened and rachel turned around to see Nova holding a white wedding dress. Rachel grinned already expecting Tira's reaction

"I'd rather not be a beacon of attention on the floor, I just want to sit back by the punch bowl"

Nova nodded and noticed the black dress Rachel had last showed her

"What's this? It looks adorable!"

As Nova's eyes hit the chest she spoke again

"Oh, a V-neck, yeah let's see if we can find one of these that can fit you"

"Okay"

As Nova walked to one of the workers she spoke up drawing his attention

"Excuse me, do you have something like this that better fits my friend's… endowments"

Rachel grinned as Tira blushed from the clerk looking at her chest

"Okay, I'll see what I can do"

As they followed the man he headed through the isles until he was in the black section

"Is this what you're looking for?"

He held up a black dress with a similar skirt and no sleeves, the only difference being that is was better shaped to fit a woman with a larger bust. Rachel spoke next

"What do you think Tira?"

"It's fine, thanks"

Nova took the dress from the clerk and they began walking towards the cash register, Rachel decided to pay for the dress as it wouldn't be much of a gift if Tira payed for it.

 **Nova:**

A few days after Tira's party she was watching Pirin and Tira's training session from the bleachers, Pirin was currently helping Tira with setting up the user settings on the HUD

"Okay, so I recommend using your scroll to setup your settings as using voice recognition can be aggravating for anything other than keywords"

"Okay, how do I do that?"

"Use the chord that came in the box"

"Ummmm… here we are, alright, so first it's asking for a username"

"Enter whatever you want, your actual name is usually best"

"Alright, T-I-R-A, alright, now it wants to know what my favourite color is, why?"

"The selected color affects the HUD color, it can be changed later on, considering I painted the gauntlet and glove black I suggest using red, so it matches your color scheme"

"Okay, sounds good, now it's asking me to synchronize equipment"

"Push the 'Synchronize' button on the screen, I'll push the synchronize button on the gauntlet"

"Okay it says it's found a 'HEXADE D.D.R.S.'"

"What's the item code?"

"Y2K18"

"That's the one, synchronize it, don't worry about overwriting the previous sync"

"Okay"

"So it's synced, now just press item settings"

Nova began to tune out of the nerd talk at that point until she heard her name called

"Nova! Care to help me and Tira with the combat training part now?"

"Sure thing"

As Nova walked down to the gym floor Pirin spoke

"Alright, so Tira, first me and Nova are going to bombard you with dust until you've gotten the hang of the redirection system, then we'll get to a straight fight"

Nova grinned as Tira raised her left hand and extended the shield, Nova then pulled a red dust crystal out of her satchel before crushing it in her hand, around her formed several fireballs that spun around her. Nova then held her hand forwards, the fireballs followed her example. Tira raised her shield, blocking several fireballs

"Good, now fire the beam"

Pirin called from the sidelines, in response Tira fired a beam of fire energy at Nova, who used ice dust to disperse the energy

"Looking great, do you want to keep practicing or do you want to get around to a proper fight?"

"Let's get to the fight"

Pirin jumped down from the bleacher and walked next to Nova

"Alright, me and Nova will work against Tira, how's that sound..."

Pirin's question was cut off due to Tira leaping at him with a downward swing, Pirin barely had a chance to block her attack before dashing backwards to avoid being pinned by Tira's strength, Tira then turned to block a fireball from Nova and charge at her, Nova created a wall of ice which encased Tira's sword. As Tira tried to pry her sword from the ice she heard Pirin behind her and used her tail to strike him in the chest, knocking him back just as she tore her sword from the ice, causing the wall to crumble, Tira turned back to Pirin, not knowing that Nova had been charging a dust blast. The bolt of fire knocked Tira off balance and right into a baton strike from Pirin, Tira was sent hurtling where she fell in a heap, Nova looked up at the aura meter to see that Tira was still over half aura. Pirin charged Tira with his batons, only for Tira to raise her shield and shoot a beam of fire directly into Pirin's chest, a shield from Nova blocked the beam, to which Tira followed her first attack with a swing of her sword. While Nova's shield took the brunt of the strike Pirin was still pushed back some distance. Tira walked towards Nova who sent a bolt of lightning arcing past Tira to hit her in the back, Tira saw the bolt pass her and blocked the strike with her tail, the shell stopping the electricity in its tracks, She then lunged at Nova knocking her off of her feat. Tira turned around and used her shield to block a hailstorm of electric dust from Pirin, who was then sent flying by his own redirected attack, Pirin crashed into the wall and crumpled, his aura nearly broken, Tira turned back to Nova who was currently running towards her, the action was so absurd that Tira just stood still as Nova ran past her to stand next to Pirin. As Nova helped Pirin up she whispered three words into his ear

"Shock and awe"

Pirin grinned and raised his gauntlet as Nova pulled a lightning dust crystal from her satchel, she threw it in the air as Pirin used his gauntlet to shoot the crystal just as it got behind Tira. The resounding electrical blast caused Tira to stumble and bit a massive chunk out of her aura, in response Tira charged the two, using her shield to block all of their attacks before swinging horizontally at Pirin, Nova's semblance blocked the attack. Tira turned to Nova firing a beam from her shield, breaking Nova's aura in seconds. Without looking Tira struck Pirin with her tail, she heard the sound of his aura shattering and grinned

"Good match guys!"

Her only responses were a pair of exhausted groans from her two sparring partners

 _Author:_

So yeah, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIRA! Either way, I think this is a good time to address the power scaling among team RPNT, Rachel and Tira are without doubt the strongest two, what with Tira's massive aura and strength and Rachel's speed and versatile fighting style. Pirin and Nova play a far more supportive role in combat, Nova guarding allies and using her dust as a suppressive weapon, while Pirin's most efficient when he has time to examine his opponent's fighting style and counter it, as well as preying on opportunity. So yeah, Tira and Rachel are best in a straight fight, Pirin and Nova's effectiveness is multiplied when working with a team. So either way, talk again later, sorry about the sporadic posting


	19. Chapter 15: The Dance

**Rachel:**

Rachel stood in the back, surveying the dance floor, Ruby, Jaune and Pirin were standing by the punchbowl, while Rachel would have normally preferred that her team socialize, this wasn't the time for that though, this was their day to relax before missions the next day. As she looked towards the entrance she saw Nova and Tira walking in, Nova wearing a hot pink ball gown, a rather traditional look that fit right in on her, Tira on the other hand looked like someone completely different, her black dress didn't have a corset like Nova's, being instead a more quiet form of attire. Rachel had tried to opt out from dressing up, as had Pirin, although Nova had been insistent that they both wear proper attire, so now, Rachel wore a colorful jade green and mauve dress, and Pirin wore a gray jacket and pants with a yellow undershirt, Rachel had to admit that he did look handsome, in a superior and uninterested way of course, but still handsome nonetheless.

 **Pirin:**

Pirin walked up to Jaune and Ruby, who were currently discussing Weiss, Pirin slightly winced, remembering when the girl had called him a 'Military Dog' during the first week, due to his use of Hexade equipment and his strict behaviour

"...too much to focus on to worry about boys"

Pirin heard Jaune growl and followed his sight to Neptune, a blue-haired Mistral student who Pirin considered rather obnoxious, the boy was mimicking someone putting on dress gloves, laughing as he did so

"Hold my punch"

Pirin watched as Jaune stormed off towards Neptune, he then heard sipping and turned to see Ruby taking a drink from the cup Jaune had given her. The crimsonette slightly turned and looked at Pirin with a guilty expression, something about her facial expression and how she was still holding the cup to her mouth made Pirin break out into a chuckling fit

"Don't worry, I won't tell him"

Pirin turned back to Jaune to see him now following Pyrrha, Pirin hadn't spoken to the Mistallian champion very much, mostly just compliments during fights. Pirin turned back to Ruby only to see that she was gone, Pirin looked around trying to see the girl before slumping against the wall with an exasperated grunt.

 **Nova:**

"Come on, you look great!"

Nova was trying to convince Tira to come into the ballroom, the girl was terribly shy though, and wasn't having any of it

"No! I'm not going in there like this"

"Why not?"

"Everyone's going to look at me"

"And?"

"Unlike you I hate attention"

"Oh for Dust's sake, come on!"

With a grumble Tira walked in through the doorway of the ballroom, Nova saw Rachel in the corner looking at them, as well as Jaune, Pirin, and Ruby near the punchbowl. Nova had tried to convince Rachel to make Pirin participate in the dance, Rachel had insisted that they take a break. Nova Continued walking until she reached the center of the ballroom, at which point she looked around for a dance partner.

 **Tira:**

While Nova walked off to dance, Tira headed to Rachel's corner of the ballroom, where she stood beside the shorter girl

"Tira, how're you liking the dance?"

"It's fine, I'd much rather not be wearing this damn dress though"

"Come on, well, either way. Are you ready for missions tomorrow?"

"I guess?"

"Something's on your mind, what's wrong?"

Tira was about to give an automatic 'It's fine' response, when suddenly something came to mind, she was afraid, no, not afraid, apprehensive, she was apprehensive.

"I'm not sure, the only real fight I've ever been in was with that Grimm thing, besides that it's always been training fights"

"Don't worry, we're all going to be working together, we'll be watching each other's backs"

"I guess"

Tira didn't quite believe what Rachel said, It sounded hollow, like the girl herself didn't even care what she said. Before Tira could mull over it any more however Rachel's attention was drawn to the doorway, Tira turned to see what Rachel was looking at, and saw General Ironwood, leading Ruby into the ballroom.

 **Rachel:**

"What's going on?"

Rachel spoke to General Ironwood who raised a hand signalling for her to stop, Rachel looked to Ruby

"Are you in trouble?"

Just then general Ironwood spoke

"No, she stopped a break in at the CCT tower"

"A break in? Who did it?"

Ruby spoke next

"Some woman wearing black, she had a mask, she used glass"

Rachel raised an eyebrow, just then they heard the clock strike 1-am, Rachel looked up in surprise, before Ironwood walked away.

 _Author:_

So sorry about the delay and short chapter, I don't know why, but I was having some serious difficulty finding inspiration for this chapter. Next one's going to be really fun though, I've been planning it since the first days of this fanfic, no major spoilers, although there is a group known as the Last Resort who the characters will be encountering.


	20. Chapter 16: The Last Resort, Part One

**Rachel:**

"Wait… hold on, so this woman just popped up from behind one of the computers? What was she even doing there?"

"I have no idea"

"Did she say anything?"

"She mentioned some hideout in the southeast"

Rachel raised an eyebrow

"And how did THAT come up in conversation?"

Ruby looked Rachel dead in the eye, the sheer intensity of the glare stopped Rachel from speaking

"Okay… she didn't mention it, but a few weeks ago my team snuck off and infiltrated a white fang meeting, Torchwick was there, you know him?"

Rachel nodded

"Tall dark and dresses like a wannabe pimp? Yeah, I've seen the guy"

"Yeah, well he mentioned a white fang hideout in the southeast, I know that woman was connected to him, so I kinda… lied"

Rachel mulled over this information, she had never taken Ruby for the mischievous type, although this did explain why she saw what looked exactly like team RWBY fighting a mech on the news a few weeks back. Rachel returned her gaze to Ruby and gave a cheeky grin

"So you told a little white lie to get Ozpin's attention on the problem?"

Ruby's face lit up in joy, clearly delighted that Rachel had understood her plight

"Yeah, exactly"

"So I'm guessing that our missions are going to be in the southeast quadrant then?"

"Yeah, speaking of which, we should probably get back to our teams"

Rachel nodded and waved goodbye to Ruby before looking around for the rest of team RPNT. When she saw them by one of the screens she jogged over

"Hey guys, what mission are you looking at?"

Pirin turned around

"We're thinking about a cleanout mission, visit a village, dispatch any and all nearby Grimm, leave, it'll be fast and easy"

Rachel nodded, liking the idea

"How about you two?"

First Nova spoke

"It sounds fun, plus we'll be back quickly"

Tira gave her reason next

"It'll be quick, that's an upside, besides that I don't really care"

Rachel nodded

"Alright, it's settled then, cleanout mission it is!"

A few minutes later they stood at the airdocks, waiting for the huntsman to meet them. Just then Rachel heard something

"Hey! Team CFVY is back"

Rachel looked over to see Velvet and her team, she smiled and ran over to her

"Hey, Velvet!"

 **Pirin:**

Pirin stood at the airdock waiting for his team's huntsman to arrive, Rachel had run off and was talking to a faunus girl, Nova was counting her dust, and Tira was clearly daydreaming. Just then Pirin looked down at Nova

"What are you doing?"

"Organizing my dust, what does it look like?"

"The greens are between the reds and blues! What sort of color coding is that?!"

"Well what am I supposed to do?"

"Colour wheel organization! Reds, purples, blues, greens, yellows, oranges, IN THAT ORDER!"

"Why though?"

"OH FOR DUST'S SAKE!"

Just then Pirin's tirade was cut short

"You must be team RPNT… isn't there supposed to be one more of you?"

Pirin turned to see a man with black hair, maroon and rust coloured armor, and a pair of welding goggles on his forehead. Pirin nodded and cleared his throat

"Yes, I'm Pirin, this is Nova, and that's Tira. Our leader Rachel will be back in a moment"

As if on cue Rachel jogged back, she looked at the man before looking at her teammates

"Hello, you must be Rachel, I'm the huntsman who'll be working with you for the next week, My name is John Bandit"

Pirin watched Rachel nod, before John spoke again

"Alright, follow me"

As the team followed John they saw the aircraft he was leading them to, Nova spoke first

"What is that?"

Before them was a sleek looking aircraft painted in the same colours as John's armor, far lighter than a bullhead and with several missile pods mounted on the bottoms of its wings

"This here is my bird, I call her 'the Wolfhound' she's a lightweight bomber with state of the art firepower and souped up engines"

Pirin could only marvel at the modifications that had been made to the craft, the missile pods could be easily reloaded from the ground, there were two pods per wing, one carrying anti infantry unguided torpedoes, the other carrying anti tank guided rockets. Most impressive was the 'Hexade' P.D.S. mounted on the nose where a machine gun would normally be. Pirin could only speak a few words before being cut off

"It's an incredible piece..."

Just then John spoke again

"So, are we going to get to work, or are we just going to sit around ogling my baby?"

"Sir, did you build that?"

John turned to Pirin

"Well she's a modified 'Granite-12' fighter from the great war, besides that I attached all the modern weaponry and engines and wired them up, so I only really did the hardware and painting, no changes to the chassis"

Pirin nodded before John opened the door to the bomber and he as well as the rest of his team took their seats and buckled in. Meanwhile John strapped himself into the cockpit, Pirin heard the generators humming to life and the engines warming up. John's voice crackled over the speaker

"Hello team RPNT, this is your captain speaking, I politely ask that you fasten your seatbelts as getting quality passenger seats was never one of my priorities when building a bomber, besides that just sit back, I'll ping you when there's something that needs your attention, and if you get hungry I've got a mini-fridge under the seats. That will be all"

Pirin immediately lay back into his seat and closed his eyes, intent on getting some rest. When Pirin awoke there was an alarm going off and a red light flashing, Pirin looked out the bulletproof glass and saw a giant red eye staring back at him.

 **Nova:**

Nova stared in horror at the massive Grimm that was floating beside the ship, it was a huge squid like creature floating beside the bomber, its eye larger than the entire ship. Just then Nova's train of thought was cut off by John giving an order over the intercom

"Open fire on that thing, I need an opening!"

"On it! Alright team, shoot for the eye!"

Nova followed Rachel's order, charging up a fireball in her hand she flung it, the creature reacted swiftly, blocking the strike with one of four large tentacles, before using a collection of smaller, longer tendrils the strike at the bomber. Rachel and Pirin each fired off their weapons, several tendrils being burned by Pirin's lightning dust while others were blown off by Rachel's rifle, Nova then fired a bolt of ice, encasing the tentacle that was guarding the eye

"Rachel! Shoot it!"

Rachel followed through with a bullet that caused the entire tentacle to shatter into fragments. The squid Grimm screeched in anger before raising a new tentacle to block its eye, Nova fired another ice bolt, but a smaller tendril blocked the shot. Nova stopped to listen to Rachel's order

"Me and Pirin will distract the tendrils, Nova, see if you can get Tira onto that thing!"

Pirin and Rachel took up firing stances and began shooting the tendrils off, meanwhile Nova turned to Tira

"Think you can make that jump?"

"No. Do you have wind dust?"

Nova thought for a moment before drawing a pale white crystal from her box

"Ready when you are"

Tira nodded, backed up a few steps, and then made a running jump off of the bomber. Nova raised her hand that held the dust and immediately a gust of wind hurtled Tira upwards and onto the head of the Grimm, right above the eye. The creature made a panicked screech and used one of its large tentacles to try and whip the girl off of its head. Tira strengthened her posture and cut the tentacle clean off, earning more agonizing screeches from the creature, Tira then used her tail to stab into the eye, blinding the creature. Tira then looked back up to the bomber, Nova was about to use more wind dust to try and carry her when Rachel threw down a rope, Tira grabbed the rope and the three of them pulled her back onboard. Once Tira was on the ship Rachel called out to the cabin

"Alright, we're clear"

"Great job kids, now hold on to something! I'm gonna blow this son of a bitch to pieces!"

Team RPNT did as told, holding on as the bomber flew towards the creature, which was currently thrashing around blindly. Just as the sound of missiles firing was heard Nova saw something coming at the bomber from the side, one of the two remaining large tentacles was currently on a collision course for the bomber, Nova tried to shout, but there wasn't enough time, the bomber was struck hard and sent spiraling down to remnant. Between the screech of metal being twisted off and the rocking of the ship Nova was unable to stay conscious.

 **Tira:**

Tira looked up from the wreckage of the destroyed bomber, she saw around her her teammates, unconscious, but still alive. Pirin's prosthetic arm had fallen off and lay a few meters away from his body, Nova's box of dust had opened and there were crystals littering the ground, Rachel's rifle was still clutched in her arms. Tira's ears began to stop ringing, and the noise was replaced with air raid sirens, Tira looked around in surprise and saw that they lay in the middle of a large stretch of concrete filled with warehouses and a few generators. While looking around her Tira saw the cockpit of 'the Wolfhound', the glass had been shattered when John had been sent careening out, he now lay in a crumpled heap face first on the ground, and judging by the pool of blood he was lying in he hadn't been as lucky as the rest of them. As Tira got to her feet she saw two people approaching her, one a girl in a white short cut dress with a theatrical fox mask, the other girl was wearing a black and neon green suit of armor that was wrapped in bandoliers and had a large backpack mounted on it, the girl in the armor spoke into a communicator

"It's got beacon aerography mounted on the side… I'm counting at least four survivors… take them in? Roger that"

Listening to what the girl said Tira could tell these two meant them no good, she drew her sword and charged at the girl in armor, before she could attack her though the girl in white lunged and swept her off of her feet with a kick. As Tira looked up the armored girl glared down at her

"Thanks for the save Raina, now then back to you"

The girl raised on leg before kicking Tira in the face, knocking her unconscious like the rest of her team.


	21. Chapter 17: The Last Resort, Part Two

**Rachel:**

Rachel woke with a start, looking around she saw that she and the rest of team RPNT were in a jail cell of some sort, instinctively she reached for her weapon

"Don't even bother, your weapons are in the hold"

Rachel looked around and saw a girl wearing green and black armor, running along the armor were several bandoliers of grenades and ammo, running from a large ammunition drum on her back to her weapons, a machine gun and grenade launcher both painted dark green, the most eye-catching part about her was her fiery red hair though

"W-who are you?"

The girl clicked her weapons into their holsters at her sides before walking up to the cell

"Name's Sophia, that's Raina, and this is the last resort. You and your friends here are going to be staying in that cell until Ozpin hands over the ransom, capiche?"

Rachel looked at the girl who was apparently named Raina, she wore a short white dress and a theatrical fox mask, the girl wasn't looking at her, just sitting in the back looking at the wall

"Don't mind that, Raina's pretty shy, don't talk much"

Rachel nodded, Just then her attention was drawn by Pirin screaming, the noise hurt her sensitive ears, and she thought she also heard a small growl coming from Raina. Rachel turned to Pirin in confusion

"You alright?"

Pirin looked shaken, his eyes darting between Rachel's face and his left arm

"Yeah, I'm just not used to waking up without my prosthetic, really sorry"

Rachel nodded absentmindedly

"It's fine"

Rachel's attention was drawn away by a P.A. system

"This is Hearts speaking, It's noon guys, Please cycle shifts. Repeat, this is Hearts, please cycle shifts"

Sofia nodded before turning to Raina

"See you at dinner"

The girls walked away as three boys walked into the room, all three wore heavy dark blue armor, one had a shotgun strapped to his back and short-cut brown hair, the next one had a rocket launcher slung over his shoulder, his hair shaved into a mohawk, and the last one had messy hair and a minigun hanging at his waist. The first boy sat down on one of the crates in front of the cage, he looked to team RPNT

"Hi, any of you feel like chatting? It can get really boring around here"

Rachel raised an eyebrow

"You're holding us for ransom, and now you want us to just chat with you?"

"Look, I'm sorry, but you landed in our territory, winter's coming soon, and we need enough money to pay for food, so please, just stay in line, and we can all be happy"

Rachel couldn't decide where she stood, these people were saying they were just trying to survive, what reason would they have to hurt her if she stayed in line. Rachel smiled before sticking her hand through the bars

"Okay, peace"

The boy smiled, Reaching to shake her hand

"My name is Alpius, how 'bout yours?"

 **Pirin:**

It had been three days after the crash, Nova was currently playing a game of 'World of Remnant' with the triplets. Rachel had said to just stay on their good sides, and from a logical perspective it was the soundest option, but there was still something off-putting about just sitting and playing board games with the captors

"...either way, I use 'White Fang Attack' to discard your 'Hexade Weapon Development' card, then I'm gonna use 'Resourceful Raider' to put the card into my hand, and then I play it, all my infantry units get +1 to combat"

Pirin looked at the board, Nova was playing Vacuo and had just used a very clever combination of abilities to weaken Atlas, being played by Celsius, the boy with the mohawk, while strengthening her own forces. It was a clever move, Pirin was also impressed that the game had followed history so well, even taking note of the fact that Hexade had only started supplying the atlesian military roughly halfway through the war. Next was Celsius's turn

"Alright, that's how we're doing it? Well then, I play 'Guardian-17', all of your forces in Blackwater are killed, and then I place 10 atlesian soldiers there, as well as the 'Snowbird' token..."

The P.A. system blasted to life

"Alright boys, girls, time to move on to your next shifts, please move in an orderly manner"

Alpius, Celsius, and Belenius groaned

"Well, see you later, Nova, we'll see if we can get Hearts to give us a triple-shift of guard duty so we can play a full game"

"Cool"

Pirin groaned, causing everyone to look at him, afraid he may be having another panic attack due to his missing arm, Rachel spoke first

"Is everything okay?"

"For the most part, something about this whole situation is just strange to me"

Just then two figures walked in, Sophia and Shockwave, Shockwave wore heavy black armor, akin to what might be seen on a bomb squad member, he carried a machine pistol at his side, and his right arm was encased in heavy armor, judging by the servos that could be heard whenever the arm moved, it seemed to be able to augment the user's strength, most likely the origin of his name. As the two sat down a question came to mind

"Who's Hearts?"

Sofia looked up at him

"What do you mean?"

"I've heard her on the P.A., but I've never actually seen her, is she crippled or something?"

Sofia chuckled

"Far from it kiddo, Hearts does the cooking, she's not as good of a fighter as me, or Shockwave, or Raina, the triplets, Dusk, Laska, or Sin, Hearts is good at handling food and organizing our shifts and keeping food on the table, so in return we keep the place standing"

Pirin nodded, going over the names Sofia had listed, Dusk and Laska were siblings, Dusk was a charismatic dark haired wolf faunus with both ears and a tail, he kept a pair of small long butcher's knives hanging at his waist, they looked frighteningly sharp, Laska was also a faunus much shyer than her brother though, however she had been marred severely, three long claw marks along the right side of her face, her right ear had been torn off, she probably also had a tail at some point, however if she did it was now long gone, she wore a black tank top and a pair of long black gloves that reached up to the halfway points of her upper arms. Pirin had no idea what sort of incident had damaged the girl so badly, however her brother, who seemed to be older by no more than a year, was quite protective of her.

Next was Sin, she was a short girl with light blue eyes hair pulled into two ponytails, she wore a grey hoodie, as well as black and neon blue striped leggings, her ensemble was very 'punk rocker'-esque, at her side she carried a small pistol that seemed to use dust.

The triplets of course were Alpius, Celsius, and Belenius, the three were quite rowdy, and judging by their equipment they were best in close quarters combat.

Sophia was unquestionably the heavy weapons expert of the group, the snarky redhead dual-wielded a machine gun and grenade launcher, both seemed to be fed a constant stream of ammunition from the drum on her back, along with the two bandoliers carrying ammo to her weapons she also had a collection of fragmentation grenades and several bullets along her belt, overall the girl was a terrifying sight to behold, her fighting style most likely involved moving forwards slowly but surely, all that loose ammunition seemed like quite a liability though.

And lastly was Raina, the girl in white constantly hid behind her mask, never talking in front of them, although whoever was accompanying her on guard duty always said she was just shy around people she didn't trust, the girl had no weapons, although from Tira's recount of right after the crash, she was a swift martial artist, capable of moving faster than the eye could register and still landing precise hits.

Pirin continued mulling over the strengths and weaknesses of each last resort member until dinner rolled around.

 **Tira:**

For dinner today was corn, Dusk and Laska had brought them their plates during their guard duty, eating while they kept an eye on team RPNT, Dusk's tail swayed back and forth slowly, meanwhile his sister, Laska, just ate facing away from the cage. Tira decided to just talk a bit, seeing as Rachel had said to stay in line

"So, how're you two doing?"

Dusk looked up

"Well, no offence, but eating dinner with everyone else is pretty fun, it's somewhat boring to just sit here in silence"

"Well is there anything you'd like to talk about?"

"What're your hobbies?"

"Combat, reading, games are pretty fun"

"You want to play cards?"

Tira felt like just going with it, Nova had been playing World of Remnant with the triplets, a game of cards sounded fun.

"Sure"

 **Nova:**

"...I play 'Giant Nevermore'"

Nova winced as Belenius slammed the card onto the board, he was playing Vale, she was playing Vacuo, she had been attacking with 15 militia units, and it had taken several turns to create that attacking force, as Belenius rolled the dice her eyes practically popped out of their sockets. Nova feigned a look of hurt as she dramatically posed

"Farewell, my valiant heroes, you shall be avenged. Oh and it's your turn Celsius"

The triplets chuckled at the display followed by an anticlimactic note, Celsius then proceeded to place three imperial guards along the border between Mistral and Atlas, before placing two cards down

"Alright, first I'm playing bountiful harvest, three gold Lien tokens please, thanks. Next I'm playing "Mining Accident", Alpius, you lose one dust and one Lien token. Now then I'm sending these three imperial guards to attack mantle"

Just then everyone's attention was drawn to the P.A. system

"Hello, everyone, could I please ask that Rachel is brought to my office immediately? Thank you"

The triplets all stood up, Nova turned to look at Rachel, who stood up and raised her hands in surrender, Alpius pressed a button outside the cell, causing the bars to rise up, while Celsius and Belenius walked in, Celsius planted a pair of handcuffs on Rachel's hands. As the three left with Rachel Alpius turned around

"Don't worry, she'll be fine"

 _Author:_

And… cliffhanger! Still sorry about the difficulty updating. It's been difficult to find time, but yeah, next time we see why Hearts wants to see Rachel, we also will be having a large fight scene next chapter.


	22. Chapter 18: The Last Resort, Part Three

**Rachel:**

As Rachel was lead by the triplets she looked around, they were currently passing through a hallway full of bedrooms, she saw the signs with everyone's names on them. It was absurd how these people all just laughed together, she had never seen the purpose in making friends she had always been more of a loner, the only person she really had ever gotten close to was Butch, and that was more of a necessity thing. She hadn't even really opened up to the rest of her team, she had had some occasional verbal sparring with Pirin, but her other two teammates weren't spoken to that much, she respected Tira for showing off her faunus traits, and even using them to her advantage, Nova though, she didn't speak to her that much, Nova's friendly nature was generally annoying, Rachel preferred being cautious.

"Hey… you there?"

Rachel blinked at the hand being waved in front of her face, Alpius was trying to get her attention, and she was standing in front of a door with 'Hearts' stamped on the front. Rachel nodded before reaching for the doorknob, she then opened the door and walked in, the triplets followed her, before a finger snapping caught their attention

"Just me and her please"

The triplets nodded before leaving the room, leaving Rachel and Hearts, Rachel then looked to her right, seeing a screen with Ozpin's face on it. Rachel's eyes widened, before the face on the screen opened its mouth

"Hello ms. Cross"

Rachel's mouth opened in surprise, she then looked at Hearts, the girl wore a leather jacket with a pair of golden revolvers at her sides, under the jacket she also had two bandoliers full of bullets. Hearts turned to the screen

"Do you believe that I have your students now?"

"Yes"

"Then do we have a deal?"

Ozpin stopped to think, Rachel was shocked, this maniac was considering leaving her for dead! Rachel's ear twitched, she heard a buzzing noise in the background, but the buzzing seemed to become clearer, until Rachel realized it was a noise

"Rachel, in twenty-four hours a drop ship is going to be bombing the base, be ready for then"

Rachel almost nodded subconsciously, but just then caught herself, Ozpin then spoke

"Very well, give me a few days to get the money and dropship"

Hearts nodded before pushing a button on her desk, a buzzer sounded, before the Belenius opened the door.

"Please return this girl to her cell"

"Yes Ma'am"

As Celsius lead Rachel she looked back to see Hearts turn off the screen before pulling a cigarette from one of her pockets, and place it in her mouth.

 **Pirin:**

As the triplets lead Rachel back to the cell Pirin watched her, she had a look in her eye, like someone who couldn't wait to tell a secret, but had to nonetheless. As Rachel entered the cell Nova and Tira both spoke up in near unison

"What happened?"

Rachel held up her hand to her mouth in a shushing motion, both girls immediately stopped speaking. Pirin then decided an easy way to get the message across

"Nova, how about you return to your game?"

Nova looked to the triplets, who seemed happy to relieve the tension, completely unaware of Pirin's more strategic intentions, the perfect state for his plan. He then lightly tapped a rock against the concrete of the cell, so quiet that only Rachel could hear it. Rachel had hid her heritage well, anyone less intelligent or aware of common faunus tendencies would have fallen for it, for a while even Pirin had, one day he had noticed Rachel's sensitivity to noise, he could still remember how it went. Pirin had been in class, rapping the fingers of his prosthetic arm against his gauntlet quietly, a subconscious habit that often overtook Pirin when he was bored, he had looked over to Rachel to see her looking at his hand, then he noticed small twitches in her mauve hair, Pirin immediately pulled out his scroll

[P: Rachel?]

[R: Yes?]

[P: You're a faunus]

[R: What the hell? How do you know?]

[P: I'm good at these sort of things, who else knows?]

[R: What do you mean?]

[P: Does the rest of the team know? I don't want to accidentally spill your secret]

[R: Tira knows, obviously, Nova doesn't though]

[P: You don't much like her, do you?]

[R: For Fuck's Sake]

[P: Like I said, I'm good at this]

[R: Listen, we'll talk about this later]

Returning to the matter at hand Pirin shoved his memory aside, using the stone in his hand he wrote 'What happened?' on the concrete. He then handed Rachel the stone, she then wrote 'Ozpin's going to attack this place tomorrow, we're going to have to fight our way out then'. Pirin then nodded and looked to the triplets, the three of them were busy playing 'World Of Remnant' with Nova. Pirin turned back to Rachel and whispered

"We'll discuss this with the other two between shifts"

 **Nova:**

It had been about a day, Nova was currently playing with the triplets, just keeping up the illusion, it was painful to lie to them, they weren't really bad people, she hoped that they wouldn't get hurt. All of a sudden the lights died, only for a moment, before red lights activated and a message played over the P.A. system

"This is a recorded message, the primary generators are not working, we currently have ~thirty-two minutes~ of energy in the backup batteries"

The triplets all groaned before standing up

"Sorry Nova, this is a code red, we've got to go check on the generator"

Just as the three boys walked to the middle of the room a noise could be heard overhead, a bullhead diving, Nova couldn't hold it any longer, she jumped to her feet and screamed

"LOOK OUT!"

She was too late though, as the three turned around the ceiling exploded, shrapnel rained down on them, leaving all three half-buried and unconscious under a pile of debris. Nova looked in shock before Pirin grabbed her shoulder and drew her attention

"Don't worry, their auras took it"

Pirin then placed his hand against the bars, his aura flashed light blue before culminating in a wave of energy that blew the bars off, while worried for her new friends she was impressed

"How did you do that?"

"Using aura to apply kinetic force, I'll show you some other time"

Pirin then ran over to the crate with his equipment in it, first he pulled out his arm, sliding the metal onto the socket in his shoulder, Pirin smiled while moving the arm.

"Ahh… it's about time"

Nova then turned to the crate with her satchel in it, she pulled the leather strap over her shoulder before checking her dust supply, untouched, just the way she liked it. Nova turned to see the rest of her team, Pirin and Tira had applied their bat-net systems they each had their respective gauntlets on their non-dominant arms, Tira's black gauntlet looking great when worn on the opposite hand from sword. Rachel then spoke

"Alright RPNT! Let's get this done! Pirin and I'll head left, Tira and Nova, you'll head right"

 **Tira:**

Tira and Nova were currently hiding behind a pile of crates, several meters on the other side stood Shockwave and Raina. Tira poked her eyes out for a moment, only to duck under a hailstorm of lead, Tira looked over to Nova, who currently held a piece of fire dust in each hand. Nova looked over to Tira and grinned, Tira immediately understood the plan, she jumped over the crates and raised her shield, blocking all of Shockwave's bullets as she charged him, before ducking out from under her shield and knocking his machine pistol out of his hands. Meanwhile she heard Raina let out a yelp like a dog that had been kicked, she turned her head to see Nova prepping another pair of fireballs. Tira then jumped back, dodging a punch from Shockwave's iron-clad arm. Tira then lunged at him with her sword, he swatted away the attack with his right arm, the armored one, Tira quickly spun on her heel, making a horizontal cut at Shockwave, which bounced off of his aura. Tira raised her shield, blocking a punch from the man, she held for a moment, their metal locked, before lowering her sword and causing the older man to stumble, she took advantage of this and stabbed twice at him with her tail, both strikes being easily deflected by his aura. Tira and Shockwave exchanged a few more blows, taking turns attacking and blocking, before Tira punched shockwave in the face, dazing him, she then turned to Nova

"Overload!"

Nova barely dodged a kick from the nimble fox faunus, before conjuring a fireball and throwing it at Tira, who blocked it with her shield and turned to face Shockwave again. The man charged at her, punching straight for her shield, seemingly trying to break her guard. Just as the punch landed Tira fired the shield's laser, a stream of fire erupted from the surface of the shield, pushing shockwave into the wall. As he regained his footing his aura flickered navy blue and died. Shockwave looked at his hands as his aura crumbled, and in one last-ditch attempt he charged Tira. Tira watched him, during the fight she had seen where the wires from the arm connected on his back, right on his spine, an easy weak point, as he swung his fist at her she dashed under his fist, and without even turning jammed her tail into the device on his spine. Shockwave screamed in agony as his muscles spasmed, Raina also looked up from Nova, who she had just kicked to the ground. Tira grabbed shockwave's limp body by the arm and flung him against a wall, where he collided with a sickening crunch. Before Tira could even react she was tackled to the ground by a white blur, she looked up at Raina, and through the eyeholes of the girl's mask she saw albino-red eyes, matching the girls complexion, and in those eyes she saw tears and hatred. The albino fox faunus flicked her wrist, producing from her sleeve a razor sharp knife, with both hands she raised it above her head, aiming to stab right into Tira's throat. Tira struggled to move, but with the way the girl's knees were planted against her shoulders she couldn't move her arms without intense pain, Tira closed her eyes, bracing her aura for the oncoming strike. Only for the noise of one of Nova's fireballs, followed by another yelp of pain, and then crashing as the fox faunus was thrown into a pile of crates. Tira looked up to Nova, before she decided to crack a joke

"Two-nothing, wow, I've gotta start saving your ass"

"Heh, better get to work"

 **Pirin:**

Pirin jumped back as several bolts of blue energy tore through the air where he had just stood, he then raised his carbine and fired a barrage of electric dust at Sin, who dodged them with ease, ending in a mocking pirouette. The girl was agile, however none of her own shots seemed to be hitting, all passing Pirin barely, it was odd. Meanwhile Rachel was fighting Hearts, who was firing hailstorms of bullets from her revolvers. Pirin's attention was then drawn by another trail of blue energy, Pirin swiftly grabbed his carbine and fired a burst, hitting the girl clean in the chest, his first successful hit. Just then Pirin's HUD told him that his aura had taken a hit, his eyes widened, this was impossible. As a test Pirin fired another bolt, which hit the girl in the leg, her aura blocked the attack, aura the same colour as Pirin's own, and again his HUD notified him, Pirin then got a good idea what was going on. Sin's semblance must have had something to do with reversing auras, that's why she wasn't landing hits on him, she was protecting her own aura. Pirin formulated a plan, he reached into his mind, reaching into his aura, before switching it off. He saw Sin's aura, his aura, flicker, he then whispered for Rachel to hear

"Shoot Sin, now"

 **Rachel:**

"Shoot Sin, now"

Rachel turned, seeing Sin's aura lower, the girl didn't seem to have noticed, Rachel kicked Hearts back, before turning around and placing her pistol into her rifle and aiming down the sights. The scope popped up out of the rifle, as she aimed at Sin's arm, Rachel than pulled the trigger. The sound of the gunshot tore through the large warehouse, Sin stood in shock for a moment, before looking down at her right arm, it had been blown clean off by Rachel's rifle.

 _Author:_

So yeah, most of the last resort has been torn to shreds, and the fighting is going to be resumed next chapter. It's nice to release a chapter that I finally feel like I did well on, the last few have been a bit dull. Either way, have a good day, and please comment


	23. Chapter 19: The Last Resort, Part Four

**Rachel:**

Sin stared down at her arm, everyone stood quiet, time almost seemed slowed, then Sin screamed, agony and fear mixed into one as the girl's legs fell limp. Sin lay on the ground her body convulsing in shock as blood continued to leak from her missing arm. Rachel's attention returned to Hearts when the woman screamed

"YOU BASTARDS!"

Rachel rolled to the side, dodging a barrage of golden bullets, she then pulled her pistol from the rifle and fired three quick shots at Hearts, all of which bounced off of her aura harmlessly. Hearts dashed at Rachel, delivering two kicks that Rachel blocked with her staff, Rachel swung her staff, which Hearts blocked with one of her revolvers, before pointing the other revolver at Rachel's chest. Rachel felt a sharp pain as the bullet reflected off of her aura, she stumbled back. Hearts grinned, pointing both revolvers at Rachel, but before she could fire the revolvers, a burst of electric dust knocked both Hearts' revolvers out of her hands. Rachel saw Hearts looking to her side, at her revolvers, Rachel jumped as Hearts did, pinning the woman to the ground. Hearts tried to kick Rachel off of her, but Rachel managed to keep her pinned, Rachel turned her head to call out to Pirin

"Shoot her! Now!"

Hearts took this opportunity to grab Rachel's throat, choking her, Pirin tried to shoot Hearts, but the woman quickly stood up and used Rachel's still choking body to block the attack. Between the pain of being strangled and the pain of her aura blocking an attack Rachel almost passed out, she managed to hold on for a few more seconds though, at which point Hearts threw her aside and lunged for her revolvers, shooting Pirin's carbine. Pirin tried shooting Hearts, but his weapon buzzed and began smoking

"FUCK! What do we do?"

Rachel quickly responded

"Get up close, buy me time!"

Pirin grabbed his batons from the mag locks and charged at the woman, Hearts swung at Pirin's head with her revolver, Pirin ducked underneath the attack, unharmed, he then retaliated by jabbing at Hearts' kneecap, the woman stepped back, evading the strike. Rachel looked away and saw her weapons in the corner, she ran over and inspected them, no damage, good. Rachel grinned like the devil as she aimed the rifle at Hearts, the large bolt of lead struck Hearts' aura head on, not piercing it, but sending the woman sprawling, Hearts growled and pointed on revolver at each of the hunters in training. Pirin and Rachel jumped behind cover. Hearts began approaching Rachel's cover spot

"You crashed here, I had the mercy to return you home unharmed, and how do you thank me? You bomb my home, kill my friends, my family! If you think either of you are going to survive this, then you'll be dead wrong!"

Hearts was shouting now, tears streaming down her face as she kicked the pile of boxes over, pinning rachel under them and breaking her aura, Hearts then stood on one, applying painful pressure to Rachel's stomach. Rachel winced, and looked up to see straight down the barrel of Hearts' revolver, she could see the bullet that was about to tear her open, but just then she saw Pirin sneaking up on Hearts. Hearts caught the motion, and turned around to point a revolver at Pirin, Rachel took this moment to grab Hearts' revolver and wrench it from her hand. Rachel pointed the revolver at Hearts' leg and fired, the woman screamed as her aura broke, as did her kneecap, while she stumbled Pirin took that moment to punch her in the face with his prosthetic arm, sending her sprawling into the wall, rendering her unconscious. Pirin approached the vulnerable woman, cracking his knuckles, Rachel decided to spare the woman

"Don't"

"Why?"

"We've got more important things to do"

Pirin nodded

"How's your aura?"

"Broken, you're going to have to take the front"

"Affirmative-er, understood"

 **Pirin:**

As Pirin and Rachel continued traversing the rooms of the warehouse, they finally approached the exit, Pirin turned to Rachel and decided to ask

"What do we do when we get out there?"

"You open fire on anybody who's not the pilot, Tira, or Nova, I'll make a dashe for the dropship before providing sniper support"

"I don't have my gun, remember?"

"Crap"

In the corner of his eye Pirin saw an HMG, as he approached it he grinned

"Actually, I may have found a substitute for the time"

 **Nova:**

Nova shot a burst of fire at Laska, the girl ducked underneath her strike before punching at Nova. Nova stumbled back, barely dodging, Laska was fast, frighteningly so, and her punches were absurdly strong, one of the missed attacks had broken a wall open. Nova growled and fired a burst of ice at Laska, the girl sidestepped the shot, only for the cone of ice to still catch her hand, Nova grinned. Laska was now cut down to one hand, if she broke the ice off of her hand it would still be too cold to perform one of those full strength punches. Nova's expectations were immediately dashed as Laska broke the ice encasing her hand with just a flex, all Nova could do was stutter

"W-what… are you?"

Laska grinned and pulled her fist back in preparation

"Justice"

Nova was then sent careening into a pile of crates by Laska's punch, she quickly rose to her feet though, and as Laska charged her she threw a fireball straight at Laska, the faunus girl didn't even bother dodging, unaware of how powerful the bolt was. A massive explosion emanated from the impact point, Nova kept up her guard though, certain that Laska had a trick up her sleeve. Nova's caution proved useful as Laska walked out from the inferno, unscathed, except for her arms, her gloves had been burnt off, and underneath were a pair of mechanical arms, they started just above the elbows, and were normally covered by her long black gloves. At the connection points of Laska's arms were a collection of scars that resembled the three on her face. Nova was speechless, she had no idea what could have even caused such injuries, they looked agonizing. Just then Laska was pushed back by a barrage of bullets, Nova looked over to see Pirin, holding a massive gun. Approaching slowly as he continued to fire at the girl.

 **Tira:**

Tira bashed Dusk with her shield, causing him to stumble back, he tried slashing at her with his knives, but Tira's tail stabbed at him, causing him to jump back to avoid the attack, he then flicked his wrists, and the daggers transformed back into pistols, Dusk fired several bolts of fire at Tira, which she blocked with her shield. Tira then charged Dusk with her sword, he ducked under the slash, before being kicked back, Tira then saw Laska, her gloves were burnt off, revealing a pair of prosthetics. She had just broken a machine gun that Pirin was holding, and then punched him into the wall. Tira raised her shield and began charging a blast, just then Dusk saw what she was doing, and ran into the way of her blast, The stream of fire tore through him, Laska was alive, but she was crying as she stared at the fiery corpse of her brother. Before Tira could do anything else though she saw Pirin and Nova running for the dropship, she followed.

 **Rachel:**

As the rest of the team got to the dropship the pilot began raising the ship, an explosion however caused everyone to stumble, Rachel looked out the door to see Sophia slowly walking towards the dropship, grenade launcher and machine gun in hand, her attacks caused the ship to rock, Rachel heard Pirin shout

"Stop her!"

Rachel grabbed her rifle from her back, and aimed it at Sophia, she aimed at one of the grenades. as Rachel pulled the trigger an explosion caused her to cover her ears in pain, as the smoke cleared she saw Sophia standing there, her aura flickered, her mouth open in shock, red spots began seeping through the fabric on her armor, before the girl fell to her knees, and then to the ground, blood pooling from her mouth, the same color as her hair. Rachel's sensitive ears caught the rest of her team gagging, as they saw the mauled girl.

 _Author:_

Thought this chapter would be longer, but yeah, this is around the end of the second season, next chapter the team is each going to be debriefed on their encounters with the last resort, then we'll be beginning with the Vytal festival. As usual, comment please!


	24. Chapter 20: The Vytal Festival

**Rachel:**

Rachel stood in the centre of the arena, the enemy team had eight more minutes to get to the arena, at the moment it was just her and Pirin, everyone else was yet to arrive. Rachel looked over to Pirin, he was checking his ammo.

"You set?"

Pirin looked up from his task and took a moment to process her question

"I should have enough ammunition so long as the battle doesn't devolve into a full-out firefight."

"Cool, when the other team shows up I'm going to need you to do that analysis thing"

Pirin nodded instinctively and returned to his weapons, Rachel looked down at Faeshift, her rifle would always get the job done. Pirin then caught Rachel's attention as he pointed to the enemy team arriving.

 **Pirin:**

Pirin Looked over the enemy team, There was a boy with a suit of steel-coloured armor with yellow markings all over it. On his right arm was a large triangular shield, and at his side was a shield. Next he saw a fox faunus girl with pink hair, and a short pink dress, she was looking at Pirin in a strange way, he couldn't see a weapon on her, she was likely a lightweight individual. The next enemy wore red armor with skeletal markings, he had tanned skin, ghost-white hair, and an attractively chiseled chin, at his side was a large box, Pirin could again see no weapon on him. Pirin looked at the last person on the team, he wore a black and orange uniform, at his sides were a pair of miniature shotguns, he was likely a close-quarters-combat specialist. Pirin turned to Rachel

"The guy to the left seems to be a guardian of some sort. The girl next to him seems like a lightweight fighter, I can't see a weapon on her, so she either uses dust or a semblance. The next student is likely a dust user, judging by that box around his waist, isn't too hard on the eyes either. And the last student seems to be a CQC fighter, likely based around hitting hard and fast."

Rachel nodded

"Who'll handle who best?"

"If that first student doesn't have any tricks up his sleeve then Tira will be able to bring him down easily, I don't have enough information on the girl to know how to fight her, if the second boy is a dust wielder then I'll recommend having Nova fight him, the last one relies on hitting fast and hitting hard, You should be able to keep up with him."

"Got it, hey, here comes Nova"

 **Nova:**

As Nova walked onto the arena she saw Rachel and Pirin, as well as four students she didn't recognize looking at her. As she walked up to Rachel, Pirin shot them a grin, Nova repressed the urge to shudder. Pirin's smiles gave Nova the creeps, the only way she could describe it was as a shark's smile, with too many teeth and too little humor. To try and diffuse the tension Nova turned to Rachel

"How's it going?"

Nova noticed a twinge of annoyance flash across Rachel's face for just a moment

"Well… Pirin was putting together a combat plan, what was it?"

"Tira can beat down the kid with the steel and black armor. I recommend you go after the guy in red armor, he's a dust user, I'm betting you could beat him in a one-on-one. Rachel should probably go after the kid in orange and black, she's really fast"

Nova went over the people in her head

"And you're going after the girl in pink?"

"Perhaps, her fighting style is unclear, I'm not sure if she uses dust or a semblance, she might even have a concealed weapon on her"

Rachel spoke up

"You're versatile, think you can take her?"

"Take her? I'm not sure, I can probably keep her busy while you all take out your respective targets."

"Alright, that's probably the best I'm going to get"

Just then Nova heard Tira shout

"Lance!"

 **Tira:**

"Lance!"

Tira ran onto the arena, Lance looked at her and smiled

"How's it going Tira?"

Tira hugged lance and grinned

"Great, it's been so long"

"So, we're fighting each other?"

"I guess so, good luck"

Lance chuckled

"Well, let's see how this goes, want to meet up at the fairgrounds afterwards?"

"Sure"

As Tira walked over to her side of the arena a faunus girl in pink whispered into Lance's ear

"Oh, and Tira, look out for Crus, he packs qu-ite the punch"

As Tira moved next to Nova, Rachel whispered to her

"You're going after the guy with the steel and yellow armor, sound good?"

"Sure"

The arena began to form as Port's Voice could be heard blaring over the speakers, Tira looked around to see a forest behind team RPNT, and a mountain behind team CAML.

"Three! Two! One! Begin!"

Tira charged the kid with the sword and shield, around her she saw the girl in pink sprint at Pirin before dodging under his batons and into the forest. Tira raised her shield and turned to block a shotgun blast from Lance, before Rachel fired a shot at him. Tira turned back to the kid in black and yellow, he grinned at her as his shield split into two, revealing a barrel, which he leveled at her. Tira raised her shield bracing for impact, but instead of a projectile of some sort she simply found herself flung back, Tira landed with her sword in the ground, catching herself. The boy then charged at her and swung with his longsword, which Tira deflected with her sword, before firing a beam of fire dust from her shield, which the kid sidestepped. He grinned

"Best of luck."

Tira smiled

"Sure, may the best hunter win"

 **Rachel:**

Lance burst into flames, evading Rachel's bullet. Lance then appeared next to Rachel, in reaction she kicked at him before splitting her rifle into a staff and pistol. Lance fired a hailstorm of shotgun blasts at Rachel, who jumped back, her aura dipped. Swung at lance with her staff, he jumped back, dodging her attack, before Rachel aimed her pistol and began firing, Lance hadn't reacted fast enough, and the bolts of dust hit him. Lance chuckled before bursting into flames and jumping back a few meters and firing at Rachel, Rachel somersaulted out of the way of his attacks, reloading her pistol as she did. As Rachel landed she fired one bolt at Lance, she then waited for him to reappear before emptying the remainder of her magazine. Lance fell back slightly, sputtering, Rachel quickly looked at the scoreboard, she was at about 75%, Lance was 70%. Lance fired more rounds at her. Rachel ducked before jumping back, Rachel looked around, she was next to the forest, Rachel grinned before jumping into the tree. Lance fired his shotguns at the tree. The dust caused the trees to begin burning. Rachel looked in surprise, before quickly jumping into another tree, luckily Lance didn't see her, she levelled her rifle at his chest before firing. He tried to dodge, but he just wasn't fast enough, he set Rachel's new tree on fire, but again she jumped into another tree, he saw her though this time, and fired into the tree. Rachel cursed as several pellets of fire dust tore through the air around her, luckily none hit. Rachel jumped back into the forest, firing another bullet at Lance, he stumbled as the heavy lead slug collided head on with his aura. Lance groaned in pain, and looked up to see Rachel slowly stepping back into the forest, he followed, Rachel suppressed a smirk.

 **Pirin:**

Pirin chased after the girl through the forest, his HUD scanning the surrounding area for heartbeats, just then he heard a blip and saw a heartbeat a few meters behind him. Pirin swirled around and fired his carbine before even looking, the girl in pink broke into a roll, before jumping, dodging every single bolt. Pirin put his carbine on his back before pulling his batons from his side, he kept an eye on his heartbeat sensor. Another blip, Pirin turned around to see the girl in the trees. She jumped into the trees, vanishing from sight. Pirin walked forwards slowly, he heard the girl talking

"So, what's your name?"

Pirin raised an eyebrow

"I beg your pardon?"

"What's your name? I'm Mallow"

"I'm Pirin, why are you asking?"

"Just because we're fighting doesn't mean we can't be friends"

"I suppose?"

"Neat, back to the fight?"

"Of course"

Pirin couldn't tell why, but Mallow seemed like the kind of person Pirin could relate to, she enjoyed the intrigue of a fight, but she didn't let emotions guide her. Just then Pirin saw a flash of pink light and was sent sprawling, he had forgotten to keep an eye on his heartbeat sensor. Pirin looked up at Mallow, a pink electricity arced between her fingers. Pirin jumped up and lunged at her, Mallow sidestepped the attack before firing another bolt of pink electricity, Pirin was thrown back. He ran behind a tree before switching to his carbine and reloading it. Pirin then checked his heartbeat sensor, she was there, Pirin jumped out from behind the tree with his gauntlet raised, Mallow fired a bolt of pink lightning, which Pirin hit with the lightning of his gauntlet, the two bolts of lightning collided and exploded. Pirin looked away, avoiding the blast of light from the explosion, Mallow wasn't as lucky, especially considering her improved darkness sensitivity. Pirin heard Mallow scream in pain before turning back and firing his carbine, Mallow ducked to the ground, blindly scrambling into trees. Pirin walked forwards slowly, keeping an eye on his heartbeat sensor.

 **Nova:**

Nova threw a collection of pale blue dust crystals at the red armored boy, the crystals exploded all around him, causing ice to form, pinning him to the ground. The boy tried to pull his feet free from the ice, he growled and reached into the pack at his waist, he pulled out a pair of red crystals. The boy crushed one of the crystals in his hand, the fire shot out and melted the ice surrounding him. He then crushed the other crystal, the fire shot out in tendrils that flew at Nova. She ducked under the first flaming tendril, and sidestepped the second, before using fire dust of her own to charge and redirect the third tendril. The boy stumbled back as the fireblast collided with him. Nova unleashed a spray of corrosive dust, meanwhile her opponent crushed a white crystal in his hand, the wind sent Nova's wave of acid right back at her. Nova ducked, barely dodging the attack, she then retaliated by throwing a fireball. The boy reached for another crystal, but he wasn't fast enough to avoid the attack, which sent him stumbling back. As the boy pulled himself back onto his feet he looked up to see Nova with a fireball aimed right at him. His expression froze in anxiety

"Oh no"

Nova released the bolt, the blast sent him rocketing into a tree, where he crumpled with a groan. Nova then turned around to see Tira and the kid with the sword and shield locking blades, Nova grinned, as she reached into her dust box and walked towards them.

 _Author:_

Sorry about the long wait, I was unable to find any good inspiration, either way, so begins the third season I guess. Please contact me if you have any questions or ideas, seriously, I am feeling very alone.


End file.
